By Erica C. Barnett

An investigation last year found that a “preponderance of the evidence” supports the conclusion that King County Regional Homelessness Authority director retaliated against two former stffers, Edmund Witter and Xochitl Maykovich, after the two voiced concerns about Kinnison’s leadership at a contentious staff meeting last year.

As PubliCola reported in August, staff questioned Kinnison’s decision to hire two white male executives, at salaries of $200,000 each, at the same time that she was proposing to eliminate 22 positions and lay off 13 people, including lower-paid staffers of color, to cut costs. The KCRHA board resolved the complaints against Kinnison last October by hiring an executive coach.

Simon Foster, then the deputy executive, accused Kinnison of hiring white male executives because she believed it would help the agency politically. He accused Kinnison of retaliating against him by reducing his duties. James Rouse, the agency’s former chief financial officer, said Kinnison retaliated against him by directing him not to present a preliminary 2026 budget after he said he didn’t support the proposal.

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The investigation, by the law firm Haggard & Ganson, did not find that Kinnison retaliated against Foster or Rouse. Foster’s and Rouse’s positions were eliminated last October. The KCRHA never hired another CFO—a decision that has come up recently as the KCRHA’s funders discuss whether to shut the agency down in light of a recent forensic audit that identified major gaps in financil reporting and accountability.

Maykocich, then the KCRHA’s interim chief program officer, accused Kinnison of retaliating against her by working to undermine her application for the permanent CPO position by, among other actions, sending an email to then-deputy director Simon Foster criticizing her job performance just 20 minutes after the meeting took place.

Witter, then the KCRHA’s general counsel, accused Kinnison of retaliating against him by removing him from all employment-related legal work.

Maykovich left the agency in September. Witter’s position was eliminated in the October purge, leaving KCRHA without full-time legal counsel. Kinnison hired one of the two white men at the center of the complaints, former Lake City Partners director William Towey, immediately after the layoffs.

A KCRHA spokesperson declined to comment on the findings.

On Thursday, Maykovich sued her former employer for alleged violations of the state Public Records Act, alleging that the agency illegally withheld records related to the investigation into staff complaints about Kinnison. Maykovich requested “All complaints against Kelly Kinnison” as well as “All emails, notes, and other materials relating to the investigation into Kelly Kinnison.” According to the court filing, the KCRHA produced 22 pages of redacted records and closed the request, which the lawsuit calls “obviously an incomplete response.”

The future of the KCRHA remains up in the air after a forensic audit found widespread financial failures at the agency, including a growing negative balance, widespread accounting errors, and erroneous invoices, among other serious issues. At a meeting of the City Council’s human services committee on Friday, Kinnison and Towey minimized the audit findings, suggesting that they were almost entirely the result of “historical” problems stemming from the agency’s founding.

Kinnison said the agency will seek funding to hire someone into a a “CFO-type role” from the temp staffing agency Robert Half, which charges significant fees on top of their temp workers’ salaries. Kinnison and Towey estimated that the cost of a temporary CFO would be around $500,000—more than twice the salary of the CFO Kinnison laid off last October.