Again, the number arises based on how many police the SPD was able to hire and their realistic hiring targets for 2022 (that they could still fail to meet). If the council allowed for more incentives with the money they aren’t spending on people they haven’t been able to hire (the real gist of this bill), then they could probably hire more.
That they’ve been losing people for three years is the problem.
It's possible that what you're saying is true, but that doesn't change the basic facts from my original comment. Members of the Seattle City Council espouse the "Defund the police" idea and they are acting on it - to wit, they have decreased the SPD budget at least three years in a row. They have caused the dissolution of the Navigation team and caused a recent police chief to resign by cutting her salary.
I suspect a contributing reason to SPD losing and not being able to recruit people is the openly hostile attitude of city leadership towards law enforcement. Ineffective criminal justice in the city likely contributes as well.
I don’t know if this is true in Seattle, but in Portland we’re having a huge problem hiring police officers despite having the budget to do it. The reason is the police culture. It’s well known that our police force tolerates a lot of bad behavior, including open racism, and nobody wants to work there because of it. It also doesn’t help that because of that behavior, lots of people in the city hate the police.
First, when it was proposed to eliminate some of the open head count for the police, it was soundly defeated by a SCC vote. They aren’t going to defund the police so explicitly, even if their support has a lacking.
Second, if you haven’t noticed, everyone is having trouble hiring right now. The negative vibes for the job are definitely significant, but this is also part of a more broad labor shortage.
Seattle City Council members explicitly defunded the police by reducing the funding of the police for three years in a row. Some Seattle City Council members explicitly advocate for things like "Defund the police" - e.g. Kshama Sawant.
That they’ve been losing people for three years is the problem.