Now that the toolsbeta cluster is running 1.17 successfully, it seems like a good idea to run PAWS in it as well. I've run it locally at version 1.19, so I'm quite sure it will work in 1.17 since maintain_kubeusers does and local PAWS does.
1.16 is EoL.
Warning on this: PAWS uses a stacked control plane, so we must be careful about etcd and not be too hasty.
https://v1-17.docs.kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/kubeadm/kubeadm-upgrade/
https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Portal:Toolforge/Admin/Kubernetes/Upgrading_Kubernetes