PIERCE COUNTY
Office of the County Council
July 27, 2023
Tanya Durand
Chair, The Birth to 25 Advisory Board
Transmitted Via Electronic Mail
Re: Council Priorities for 2024-2025 PSTAA Funds
Dear Chair Durand and B-25 Advisory Board members,
We understand you will be discussing the 2024-2025 Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account (PSTAA) funds Request for Proposals (RFP) at your August 7 meeting. We would like to share with you our funding priorities with the goal that they will help inform your upcoming discussions to incorporate into the forthcoming RFP.
A top priority for the Council is supporting the youth and young adults of Pierce County. The Council recently adopted Resolution No. R2023-106, identifying our preliminary budget priorities for the 2024-2025 biennial budget. For youth and young adults, our priorities focus on
- Improving health and social outcomes and support for children.
- Preparing adolescents and young adults to enter the workforce.
- Fostering community partnerships to support youth.
Specifically, we aim to prioritize funding for the following ways:
- Youth and young adult summer recreational programs in coordination with school districts and other out-of-school time partners.
- Paid employment programs for youth and young adults in partnership with private sector employers. As these two initiatives align with the allowable uses for PSTAA funds, we respectfully request that you include them in your priorities for the 2024-2025 PSTAA funds RFP.
Please do not interpret these as the only priorities of the Council, as stabilizing and growing the capacity of the childcare system is another extremely high priority of ours; high-quality, affordable childcare is critical to our continued economic growth and addressing the gender wage gap.
Additionally, there has been a recent question about the expenditure of PSTAA funds outside the Sound Transit Regional Transit Authority’s (RTA) taxing boundaries. The Council’s goal is to ensure the people paying the tax are prioritized and primarily benefit from the funds, while recognizing the opportunity for the county as a whole to benefit from these dollars. While the Council will consider applications outside the RTA taxing boundary, our preference is to prioritize expenditures within the taxing boundary. We propose adding areas served as a scoring category for applicants. This way programs only or primarily serving the taxing area receive the highest points and programs not serving the taxing area receive zero points in this category.
We appreciate your consideration of our priorities and all your work to improve the lives of Pierce County’s youth and young adults. With the county expected to receive over $100 million in PSTAA funds between now and 2035, we have an obligation to ensure these funds are invested strategically. We cannot achieve this without your partnership.
We’ll have a representative available at your August 7 meeting to answer any questions about these priorities. In the meantime, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Best,
Ryan N. Mello
Chair, Pierce County Council