1. In the wake of an audit that revealed potential fraud and waste at King County’s Department of Community and Human Services, County Councilmembers are proposing an office of inspector general to provide a new layer of oversight to receive tips and conduct investigations into claims about contractor misuse of county funds. A new inspector general’s office would cost around $800,000 a year, according to a presentation by the county auditor’s office last week.
County auditor Kymber Waltmunson said last week that an independent inspector general could augment the work the auditor and ombuds are already doing by setting up a hotline for anonymous tips, investigating fraud (the auditor does analyses but does not investigate), and actively monitoring contracts.
Rod Dembowski, one of the councilmembers who’s pushing for more oversight of county contracts, told PubliCola a new inspector general would “fill in a gap that we’ve identified” between the ombuds office, which oversees complaints about county employees, and the auditor’s office, which comes up with a work plan every year and conducts audits based on that plan.
“I’m trying to cover that gap where somebody believes something is being improperly done by a contractor or recipient of county funds,” Dembowski said. The IG would be “able to look at the actions of contract and grant recipients and see if there’s malfeasance or misfeasance there.”
County Councilmember Claudia Balducci said she agreed with Dembowski’s intention to encourage more active investigations into complaints about misuse of county funds, but isn’t convinced yet that the county needs to add a whole new office for that purpose. “I do think whatever happens needs to be nested within our current oversight [system.] I want to avoid creating overlaps and confusion.
She also isn’t convinced that the damning DCHS audit, which looked at a subset of contracts, necessarily indicates there are similar issues in other county contracts.
“I was hoping after the audit uncovered real lapses in oversight in a small number of our contracts, that someone would raise their hand and say, ‘Is this a bigger problem?'” Balducci said. “It might be. Or is it contained to some areas? But nobody in the system came out and said we should look more deeply.”
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2. More than a dozen King County employees showed up to a King County Council meeting this week to testify against King County Executive Girmay Zahilay’s “return to office” mandate, which would require most county employees, including those who were hired as remote workers, to commute to offices in downtown Seattle three days a week.
The mandate will require King County to rent a substantial amount of private office space in downtown Seattle, since the county does not have enough room for all its employees. Last week, county employees delivered a giant blank check to Zahilay’s office, representing the millions of dollars they estimate it will cost to rent office space so that everyone can have a desk downtown.
One of the most vocal advocates for a strict return-to-office policy has been Republican Councilmember Reagan Dunn, who went on KIRO Radio this week to declare, “There’s a new sheriff in town bringing employees back to King County so they can hang out around the water cooler and collaborate and do the people’s work.”
The county staffers, represented by PROTEC17, had a minute each to explain why commuting to a desk downtown would not make them more effective or efficient. Dunn, who lives 35 miles away from downtown Seattle, wasn’t around to listen, though. Instead, as he often does, he had called in to the meeting from a remote location.
As someone who is a fiscal conservative, I thought about this one for awhile. I’m with KIRO John Curley on this one. If the County can save money then save money then do it. Get metrics, if employees meet metrics then let them work from home. If they don’t meet the metric have them come in more for closer supervision. Don’t just spend money if the ROI isn’t there.
Reagan Dunn may be joining council meetings by zoom from his home in his district. He also has a second home in Roslyn. Would be interesting to know where he really is most of the time.
The cops need a audit under a microscope.
About time the excuse of “emergency” for what appears, given the amount of corruption and lack of oversight, to be a poorly executed sabbatical from their duty. Go back to work you bums!!!
Ill come forward and say it, we should look more closely at DCHS.
Egregious Oversight Failures:
Ignored Red Flags: Senior leadership sat on credible anonymous fraud complaints for over 1.5 years while payments continued.
Lack of Substantiation: DCHS routinely paid contractors who provided “little to no evidence” of their work or spending.
Shadow Subcontracting: Contractors were found paying family members through subcontractors to obscure relationships and divert funds.
Fictitious Partnerships: Some grantee leaders listed community partners who, upon investigation, had no record of ever working with them.
Scale Without Safeguards: While the DCHS budget surged to over $1.8 billion in 2023–2024, the infrastructure for tracking these funds was not scaled to match. [4, 6]
DCHS is being highly and very publicly scrutinized, and has been since the audit was released last year. This has been widely reported on in the mainstream press. It’s not some big conspiracy theory, you’re basically repeating Seattle times talking points.
I’m responding to Balducci’s assessment that there doesn’t need to be external oversight for a 1.8 billion dollar contract budget, and her characterization of “lapses in a small number of contracts.” In the auditors sample of contracts more than 50% were referred for potential improper payments. Also, there’s clear evidence that the system ignored internal whistleblowers. Combining the high fiscal stakes and the evidence makes a clear win for external oversight which amounts to far less than one one-thousandth of the overall budget.
The rushed transition has created an incredible amount of work and headaches for staff navigating inadequate space and conflicting policies. The work slowdown has been considerable. It’s a case study in how not to manage a change like this, and counter to the notion that this would increase productivity or effectiveness. In addition to the physical space costs, it would be interesting to add up the lost hours staff have spent on the moves and change management. My department will have changed desk assignments multiple times, for example, before all the dust settles. This process has caused lasting damage to morale and trust in leadership.
That’s temporary and recoverable, once The People start getting the service they deserve from county employees that they have NOT been getting since Covid sent you home 6 years ago.