The AUGUST 25th, 2026 Committee
on. Thank you. Colleagues, for
joining us on today
s agenda.
We
ll have discussion about
possible action and appointment
to the Landmarks Commission. We
will then have an initial
briefing on the King County
2026 2029 Equal Employment
Opportunity Affirmative Action
Plan, but we
re going to defer
action until a future meeting.
i
ll explain a little bit about
why. And then finally, we
ll
have a briefing from staff from
the executive
s office and from
the King County Regional
Homelessness Authority on the
case here. Contract transition
plan and the Corrective Action
Plan, and will consider taking
action on a motion accepting
the executive report with that
introduction. Clerk, will you
please call the roll?
Thank you. Chair. Councilmember
Balducci. Councilmember
Dembowski. Councilmember Dunn.
Councilmember Fain.
Councilmember Lewis. Here.
Councilmember. Mosqueda. Here.
Councilmember. Perry.
Councilmember von Reichbauer.
Chair.
Button here. And we do have a
quorum of the committee. Thank
you. Uh, vice chair. Well,
Council vice chair Dunson is
our vice chair of the
committee. Is not here. MAY I
have a motion for approval of
the minutes of the JUNE 23rd,
2026 meeting? Move. Approval.
Thank you. Any questions?
Concerns? Comments regarding
the minutes? All right. All
those in favor of approving the
minutes, please say aye. Aye
aye. Any opposed? Say nay. The
meeting minutes are approved.
We will now turn to public
comment. If anyone has joined
us on zoom and would like to
provide public comment, please
use the raise Hand function or
press star nine. If you have
joined by phone. I do believe
we have some folks in public
provided public comments, so
i
ll read the the rules on
that. Uh, public comment must
be related to items on today
s
meeting agenda and not be used
for the purpose of assisting a
campaign for election of any
person to any office, or for
the promotion of our opposition
to any ballot proposition. It
must also not include obscene
speech. If a speaker fails to
abide by these restrictions, I
will rule the speaker out of
order and have the speaker
removed from the meeting. You
will have two minutes to speak
and you will hear a timer go
off. You can finish your
thought, but please wrap up
your comments. If you go much
past two minutes you MAY be
muted. We will begin by calling
on the people who have signed
up to speak in person. If
you
re providing comment
remotely, please listen to the
meeting on the zoom call until
you hear your name called.
Clerk will you please call on
those who are with us in
person?
Thank you. Chair. Yes. Kevin.
Altamira, please.
Welcome. Chair. Kevin Alzheimer
here to speak on affirmative
action, which is a very
significant thing in our
society, especially in the
communities of people of color.
Uh, as you know, in your audit
of last year, there was a real
affirmative action issue. You
had an auditor who went outside
of the scope, and you guys know
better. And then you also had a
situation where on APRIL the
15th, uh, uh, Rod Dembowski met
with, uh, uh, what
s her name?
Lula Ramadan. Seattle Times.
And she said, hey, uh, rod, it
looks like, uh, Yolanda McGhee
did have an approval in a, in a
in, uh, Thomas Burlington did
not rule against her for
ethics. So then what does he
do? He sends her follow up
emails and says, look, I
ve
been trying to get the the
inspector general
s office for
since 2023. So I got his email.
So I
m just fair phrasing. So
this is how affirmative action
works. So you have people like
him who does what he does. Then
you have people like Kelly
Rider, a woman who was kicked
out of here because she said
there was no money missing in
dhhs. And she also said that
the family did not commit any
ethics violation. You know,
that ethics violation thing
goes two ways. It says the
county has a responsibility. So
on APRIL 9th, when Jennifer
Tanaka found out that the
actually in 2023, she found out
that the family dynamic was
there, she checked with Thomas
Burlington. He said there
isn
t. Then what happened? It
went to Megan. Those guys took
it to the state auditor. State
auditor to throw it away. Do
you know, last week, a judge
ruled against King County in
her unemployment case and said
that King County should never
put her on paid leave or
violated her rights by bringing
in an unsolicited document and
claiming that it was truth. So
what we have in this audit at
King County Oversight found
substack.Com, everybody
s act.
I don
t bring opinions. I show
you exactly what you did.
Thank you. Thank you. Clerks,
do we have anybody else signed
up in person?
Not in person, not in person.
All right. Let
s go to online.
Next week, I, Nicole Fillmore.
Welcome.
Hello. My name is Nicole
Fillmore, and I am I work for
coordinated entry for Csra
members of the council. I
m
speaking today on behalf of the
represented workers at King
County Regional Homelessness
Authority. We
re appearing
before you with the clear,
urgent message. The regional
approach to ending homelessness
in King County is worth saving,
and the front line workforce
doing this daily work is fully
committed to making it succeed.
When regionalism was
established, it was in response
to the fundamental truth that
our unhoused neighbors and
service networks do not stop at
municipal borders. Overcoming
this crisis requires regional
alignment, driven by commitment
and powered by experience.
While headline coverage focuses
on political friction. Behind
that noise, our small,
dedicated staff continue to
build and maintain the
essential operational machinery
of this response system. Our
Continuum of Care team secures
millions in federal funding by
managing the complex annual no
full competition and oversight
of the clc funding contracts.
Our our Severe Weather response
coordination protects lives
during extreme weather events.
Our independent Ombuds office
ensures consumer dignity,
accountability and grievance
resolution. Our Coordinated
Entry team manages the direct
front door to the system,
ensuring equitable access
across all jurisdictions. Our
research and data team manages
this uses regionally unified
open data to produce real time
by name lists and provides
critical data governance for
the entire system. Our programs
division provides day to day
contract monitoring. Um
partnering to ensure contract
compliance and quality by
providing technical assistance,
support and training to
contracted providers. Our
compliance contracts and
finance teams manage millions
in funding, develops and
executes contracts, ensures
adherence to funder guidelines,
leaves lease comprehensive
monitoring processes and
reviews invoices in due
diligence documentation. We
live and breathe this work
every single day. We
re not
political maneuvers. We are
civil servants.
Thank you. Nicole. On the next
person.
Next, we have Haley Willis.
Welcome.
Good morning, Council members.
My name is Haley Willis with
the Seattle King County
Coalition on Homelessness,
commenting on the transition
plan for locally funded
homelessness contracts on
behalf of more than 50 member
organizations who house shelter
and care for people
experiencing homelessness all
over King County. We appreciate
the executive
s and the
Council
s careful attention to
maintaining the stability of
our homelessness response
system. It
s incredibly
important that nobody loses or
experiences a gap in the
housing, shelter or essential
services they rely on every
day, especially in light of
ongoing uncertainty with
federal Continuum of Care
funding. Our community has led
the way in adopting evidence
based approaches that recognize
that people need a safe place
to live as a foundation to heal
and thrive. Thanks to these
evidence based practices, our
community successfully helps
thousands of people get a
stable home and leave
homelessness every year. As
King County and Seattle resume
management of locally funded
contracts, we urge you to
continue to keep best practices
and regional collaboration at
the center of your efforts to
bring more people home. Thank
you.
Thank you, thank you. Next is
Ryan Collin.
Welcome, Ryan. Go ahead.
Okay. Thank you. My name is
Ryan Talon. I
m a registered
nurse and I live in district
eight. I do not work for Kcra.
I
m here as a taxpayer. The
Kcra ceo, Kelly Kennison,
received $300,000 in public
funds. Even though the agency
has millions of dollars
unaccounted for. To put that
number in perspective, $300,000
of the cost of 2 to 3 nurses. I
regularly discharge patients in
a situation where they have no
support, and the money that is
meant to address that is going
toward a salary of a ceo whose
own governing board
investigated her and found that
she retaliated against her
staff. A forensic audit found
that the agency under her
leadership, cannot account for
millions of dollars. As I
followed this story in the
news, I
ve been wondering when
will someone be held
accountable? The ceo retaliated
against staff who reported
fiscal concerns, and based on
reports, she has also skipped
council briefings about the
audit. I want to ask, is this
what my taxpayer dollars pay
for a ceo who appears unable to
account for significant public
funds, and who remains in this
position? Despite these
concerns, King County asks
voters to approve levies for
exactly this kind of work. I
vote yes every time, but each
story like this one gives the
next voter a reason to say no.
And the people who ultimately
pay for that are my patients,
not those in leadership, city
and county leaders watching
this MAY conclude that major
failures will not carry real
consequences. Staff MAY also
learn to stay silent when a
workforce is taught not to
speak up. The next $13 million
could go missing. With no one
left willing to raise the
alarm. Council members sit on a
governing board. There is no
one else to wait for. I ask
that you hold leadership
accountable and remove her from
this position.
Thank you. Next. Ben Mathewson.
Hello, my name is Ben Matheson,
and I am an analyst with Kcra.
I
d like to build on what?
We lost Matthew. Maybe we can
go to the next speaker if there
is another commenter. Or if we
can get Matthew back.
The next person.
The next person is Ryan.
Welcome.
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
We have a bad, uh, echo. So if
you could mute that whatever
other device you have. Now,
we
ve lost. Sorry. I also. All
right, we have you back.
Hi. My name is Saori Aguilar.
I
m with the coordinated entry
team here at Kcra. And building
on what my colleague Nicole
said. Um, we know that public
confidence in our agency has
been severely tested by
executive transitions, audit
findings, and budget deficits.
Recently, critics inside and
now have labeled us as a failed
experiment. But a staff doing
the daily work. We ask that you
look closely at where the
perception comes from. Partner
confidence and in our ability
to deliver results is higher
today than ever. When people
read the headline critiques
about agency mismanagement,
they don
t see the staff who
stay late during severe weather
activation to ensure shelter
beds are open, or the program
managers who have fought
through housing instability
themselves to earn graduate
degrees and return to serve
their community. Turbulence at
leadership level MAY conceal or
distract from our best
accomplishments, but it cannot
conceal the competence,
integrity and dedication of the
people performing the work. As
King County navigates severe
budget constraints, we want the
Council and the public to
understand that our workforce
embodies deep reservoirs of
institutional knowledge, a
diverse collection of technical
and professional skills, and an
unwavering commitment to our
unhoused neighbors. Conflating
top level administrative
turbulence with frontline
operational capability is a
threat to the very expertise
that our regional response
infrastructure depends on
cutting the front line workers
who manage system access,
secure federal grants and
maintain data integrity will
not solve our regional
homelessness crisis. It would
only destroy the institutional
memory and the operational
capacity that keeps our
regional homelessness response
afloat. Thank you.
Thank you again, Ryan Talon,
please can you unmute yourself?
I think we heard from Ryan. I
think it was William that we
skipped.
Oh, sorry.
What
s that? Oh, Ben. Sorry.
Ben. Ben. Ben, can you unmute
yourself, please?
Yes, yes. Hello? Are you able
to hear me?
Yes.
We can. Yes, Ben. We have a
little bit of an echo, so if
you have another device, make
sure you turn that down. But go
ahead.
My name is Ben Matthewson. I
work as an analyst at the kcrw.
I
m members of the council. You
hold a vital role in ensuring
and shaping the future of
regionalism in King County. As
workforce adjustments and
restructuring decisions occur,
the central priority must be
preserving the institutional
knowledge, lived experience and
operational capacity that keeps
this system running. Budget
reductions are inevitable, but
protecting frontline
capabilities, including severe
weather response coordination,
data governance and management,
federal grant administration,
contract monitoring and
compliance, system navigation
and ombuds function is the only
way to ensure our region
maintains and continues to
improve its homelessness
response. A shrewd, fiscally
responsible approach to budget
contractions is one that
prioritizes direct operational
value, demonstrating to the
public that King County values
frontline competence over
administrative overhead,
restores faith in our public
institutions. Reform is never
about blindly trimming from the
bottom up. It is about having
the courage and the discipline
to occasionally trim from the
top down, accountability from
leadership is essential in
order to protect our
experienced, data driven
workforce, and demonstrates to
the public that King County
values operational competence
and fiscal efficiency over
executive overhead. The workers
at Kcra remain fully committed
to the vision of a unified,
equitable, and effective
regional homelessness response,
and we asked the Committee of
the whole to recognize the
value of the people behind the
products to protect the
frontline infrastructure of
regionalism, and to help us
ensure that every public dollar
continues to serve the members
of our communities who rely on
us. Thank you.
That
s the last person I have
that has raised her hand.
Thank you. I
ll do one more
check. If you
re trying to
provide public comment and you
haven
t had an opportunity to
do so, please use the raise
hand function and zoom. All
right. We
re not seeing any
further requests for public
comments. So we will close
public comment and start with
our agenda. Uh, colleagues,
we
re going to start out with
our first item, which would
confirm an appointment to the
King County Landmarks
Commission. King County
established Landmarks
Commission to ensure
preservation of the region
s
historic places, material
culture and traditions for
future generations. We will be
briefed on this item by Brandy
Perello, who
s on behalf of
Leah, who is not here today.
Then I will ask for any input
from Sarah Stein from the King
County Historic Preservation
Program. And then we
ll hear
from the from our appointee,
Brandi. Go ahead.
Good morning, chair Baron and
council members. For the
record, my name is Brandi
Parabola with Council central
staff. The staff report for
this item begins on page eight
of your packets. And materials
for the appointee were sent out
simultaneously with your
packets on Friday. As brief
background on this item.
Landmark Commission
commissioners are responsible
for the designation and
regulation of landmark
properties. Representation of
suburban cities with interlocal
agreements with King County,
and advice to the executive and
the Council on King County
Landmarks. Issues. Funding for
the landmark program is
available from the Cultural
Development Fund. Membership
consists of nine members and is
comprised of volunteers with
expertise in areas such as
architecture, art, land use,
historic preservation,
archaeology, education, and
history. No more than four
members MAY reside in any one
municipal jurisdiction, and
commissioners are appointed to
three year terms. Colin Carter
is our appointee today, and
he
s an associate planner for
the city of Kirkland, who
serves as the city
s primary
contact for historic
preservation. He
s also a
member of the Kirkland Heritage
Society. Staff have not
identified any issues with the
proposed appointment, and it
appears to be consistent with
the requirements of King County
Code. That concludes my
remarks. I
d be happy to try to
answer any questions.
Thank you. Thank you Brandi.
Any questions for staff? All
right. Seeing none, I
m going
to call on Sarah Stein from our
King County Historic
Preservation Program. Sarah,
anything you
d like to add?
Thank you. Councilmember. Um, I
just want to say that we
re
excited to have Colin on board.
We
ve been working with him
since he was actually at uw. He
did the the bathhouse
nomination as as a school
project in Kirkland, which is a
working class house. It
s one
of the few left in that
neighborhood. And he did an
excellent job with that. So
we
ve been working with him
regularly both before he was a
planner and as a planner, and
we
re really excited to have
him, uh, joining us on the
commission.
Thank you very much. Uh, well,
now it
s time to hear from the
appointee. So I
m going to ask
MR. Carter to come join us at
the table here for a quick, uh,
yes. Thank you very much.
Welcome. And thank you for your
interest in serving. We will be
gentle here. So, uh, thank you,
MR. Carter. Uh, appreciate your
interest in serving. And can
you share a little bit with the
committee about, uh, your
interest in serving this role?
Yes, absolutely. Good morning.
Uh, chair. And the remainder of
the committee and council, I
guess, uh, I
m honored to have
this opportunity to serve on
the Landmarks Commission. Uh,
now, more than ever, it
s
important that we preserve not
only the places, but the
stories that these places,
structures and objects possess
throughout King County. Uh, as
Sarah Stein had mentioned, I
ve
had the opportunity to, uh,
collaborate with King County
staff to actually, uh, nominate
and successfully designate, uh,
the last structure, uh, within
the city of Kirkland to
designated status, uh,
preserving not only the working
class history, uh, also that,
you know, associated
agricultural and railroad
history. Um, and so that
s kind
of the story of how I actually
got into it was what started as
a simple school project. Um,
like many others in the
historic preservation realm,
you sort of just fall into it
rather than a dedicated track
from childhood. I would say.
Um, but, uh, throughout the
years of now serving as the
city of Kirkland contact for
homeowners, developers and
others that are interested in
the historic preservation
programs, not only the city,
but the county, the county. Um,
you know, I
ve seen the the
challenges that potential
historic preservation poses.
The, uh, conversations maybe on
how it limits development and
how the demand for housing, um,
and so kind of taking all of
that, I think I have a very
pragmatic and, um, I would say
well-rounded understanding of
historic preservation within
the county. So I guess the long
winded answer, but I
m, you
know, I could keep talking,
very excited about all the
facets of it.
Thank you very much, MR.
Carter. Appreciate it.
Colleagues, do we have any
questions for the appointee?
Seeing none, I
m going to ask
Councilmember Dembowski, as the
council member from district
one, to put this item before
us. It
s proposed motion 2026
0185.
Move adoption with a do pass
recommendation.
Thank you very much. That
motion is before us. Any final
comments before we take a vote?
Appreciate your willingness to
serve.
Thank you. And I will ask the
clerk to please call the roll.
Thank you. Chair Councilmember
Balducci. Councilmember
Dembowski I, Council Dunn I
Council member Fain I.
Councilmember Lewis I.
Councilmember Mosqueda.
I.
Councilmember Perry.
Councilmember von Reichbauer a
chair Baron I have seven a
s
zero no
s and no one asks.
Pardon me. Councilmember
Balducci and Perry. Ah.
Thank you very much. By our
vote we have approved proposed
motion 2026 0185. Uh, unless
there are any objections, we
will send these this motion
with a do pass recommendation
for the consent agenda on the
regular course. Thank you very
much. Congratulations, Colin.
Again, thank you for your
willingness to serve you. This
will be on the agenda for the
full council, but you do not
need to appear. Of course, you
can always come if you want to,
but no need for you to appear.
And thank you again for your
for your willingness to serve.
Wonderful colleagues. We
ll
move to the next item, which is
item six. This would approve
the 2026 2029 Equal Employment
Opportunity Affirmative Action
Plan, which is a four year
plan. The county uses as an
informational resource to
provide an overview of the
county
s key efforts relating
to equal employment
opportunity. We will be briefed
on this item by Eric Newman,
and I will note that we
re not
going to take action on this
item, because there are still
some legal issues, but I
thought it was important as a
significant multiyear plan to
have at least an initial touch
on this item. So, Erica, I will
turn it over to you.
Thank you, MR. Chair. Erica
Newman, Council central Staff
the items for Proposed
Ordinance 2026 0147 begin on
page 14 of your packet. The
proposed ordinance would adopt
the 2026 2029 Equal Employment
Opportunity and Affirmative
Action Plan. The plan is covers
the executive departments as
well as Department of
Assessments, Department of
Elections and the Prosecuting
Attorney
s Office. Under code,
the executive is to submit um,
the new plan by JUNE 1st of
every fourth year, which began
in 2018. Um, and then the
council has uh, until or before
JANUARY 1st should either, uh,
approve, modify or reject it,
uh, via ordinance. The first,
uh plan was adopted by council
in 1995. The current plan, um,
was adopted in DECEMBER of
2022, and the under. I
m sorry.
Um, in the eeo, uh, the the
plan outlines goals and
objectives and objectives to
attract and retain a diverse
workforce that reflects, uh,
the community. And so, um, the
proposed plan, um, includes
information related to county
workforce statistics,
implementation plans for
departments and a summary of
the um, prior equal employment
opportunity, um, plan. But if
you want to go into the the
parts where we can get into
more detail, uh, beginning on
page 48 of your packet, um, it
starts to talk about placement
goals for the plan period for
2026, 2029, as well as the
implementation plans. And, um,
the on page 48, it does state
that, um. The implementation
plan included job categories
for persons of color and women,
and the goals were based on
King County workforce
availability from the 2020
population. Um, and there were
underrepresentation found in,
um, the King County workforce.
Departments are planning to
make good faith efforts to
address these areas during the
2026, 2029, uh, plan. The
implementation, uh, the the
department
s plan for
implementing the plan is, uh,
creating a new plan and
analyzing results from the
prior plan and beginning on
page 38 of your packet of the
plan. But page 60 of the
packet, our goals, um, goals
and highlights from the 2022
2025 plan. It showed that 800
840 defined goal areas, which
is about 86%, had a workforce
that was consistent with the
availability of people of color
or women with requisite job
skills. And, um, King County,
the remaining 14%, um, where
the percentage of people of
color and women were
underrepresented when compared
with those qualified and
available in the workforce. Um,
moving on to page 61 includes
achievements, um executive
departments did acknowledge
that they faced a variety of
ongoing recruitment challenges
during the prior plan period.
Um, and placement goals were
for um. For the most part, they
were achieved across all
departments. Um, the highlights
are those are the highlights.
And the executive remains that
they are going to reiterate and
advance the county
s commitment
to equal employment
opportunity, diversity, equity,
inclusion and belonging. Um,
the proposed ordinance was
transmitted on time. There are
no direct fiscal impacts on
county expenditures or revenues
and federal regulations related
to this item have very recently
changed. And therefore legal
analysis of those impacts are
ongoing. We do have Gloria
Ingersoll, uh, the King County
Workforce equity manager from
department and Human Resources
available to answer any
additional questions. MISTER
Chair, that concludes my
remarks.
Thank you very much. Uh,
colleagues, any questions on
this item? Uh, Councilmember
Lewis.
Thank you. Chair. Um, thank
you, Erica, for that staff
report. I have a couple of
questions, and they MAY be
questions for executive staff.
Um, the first question is, how
were the eib managers, the
equity, inclusion and belonging
managers involved in the
creation, updating of this
report? And the other question,
I
ll ask it now, maybe answer
it later. But as I read the
report, there was a lot in the
report about recruitment and
retention. And I
m interested
in where the report addresses
advancement for, uh, people of
color, women and people of
color, and also how it
addresses the recommendations
of the black women
s
experience. Um, study that the
county invested quite a bit of
resource in having that done.
So go ahead.
This is Gloria. Can you hear
me?
We can not hear you very
clearly. We can just barely
hear you.
Yeah, okay. I
m having some
technical difficulty.
No, no, no, no, we can hear you
better. I think we upped the
volume here. Go ahead.
Let
s do the thing there. Um.
Thank you, thank you. Thank
you. Councilmember. Um, one for
the first question as it
relates to, uh, engaging eib
managers. Um, um, we did not
engage the eib managers. And,
uh, since we started, if this
is meeting being forthcoming,
uh, since we started the plan,
uh, the eib classification is a
new classification. Uh, in
crafting the plan, we did not
engage the eib manager, but in
ongoing efforts to continue to
diversify our workforce. Um,
through, uh, our advisory
committee, uh, the eeo advisory
Committee, there are ongoing
conversations that includes
conversations with the hr
managers and eib managers in
terms of implementation and
making sure that not only are
we meeting our hiring retention
goals, but we are also looking
into data that is, uh, ongoing
because we pull that data on a
quarterly basis. And so
advisory committee members,
they do have those regular
meetings to continue to make
sure that department is being
held accountable to the efforts
that we put forth in this plan
and that both hr manager are
involved in the eib managers
are also informed, uh,
informing those implementation
efforts. Um, I can say that
moving forward, as we continue
to make improvements, we will
definitely make sure that we
are engaging eib managers,
although, um, I would say that
for the most part, really
looking at hiring, retention
and promotions that work since
it leaves and sits within the
hr managers, uh, they tend to
be the ones that we engage the
most with.
Thank you very much for that.
Would you mind identifying
yourself for the record?
Because we
re seeing you as
Megan Peterson. So go ahead.
Uh, my name is Gloria and
Gonzalez, last name. And I am
the King County Workforce
equity manager in the
Department of Human Resources.
Thank you very much,
colleagues. Any additional
questions? Um, as I noted,
we
re not going to take action
on this item. The one thing
that I did note from the, uh,
report that I wanted to make
sure that we, you know,
recognize is that one of the
areas that we have, I would
say, backtracked as a county
workforce in the past few years
has been the issue of gender
and our the percentage of our
workforce, uh, who identify as
women is going, I would say, in
the wrong direction. Um, so,
you know, I think that
s that
s
what the data shows. There
s no
kind of controversy about that.
But I just wanted to highlight
that. And I urge, you know, the
executive branch and something
that I think we want to monitor
closely, and perhaps when we
take action, I would love to
hear from, uh, from the, our
executive branch specifically
on that issue, on what steps
we
re taking, uh, to reverse
that trend. Um, there
s some,
some, some of that in the
report, but I think it would be
great to hear a little bit more
on that. Uh, next, next month
when we take action on this
item. Uh Councilmember
Mosqueda. I see your hand up as
well.
Thanks so much. Sorry. It was a
little bit choppy. Did you say
that the equity, inclusion and
belonging was not consulting?
Uh, not.
In the crafting of the plan,
but in the ongoing
implementation?
Yes. We are. Consulting with
them on a regular basis.
Okay. And Councilmember Lewis
had asked the question. I was
wondering about regarding the,
um, black women
s experience at
King County. Um, and
colleagues, if you haven
t seen
that report recently or read
it, I think it would behoove us
all to see how this submission
correlates with the report that
Councilmember Lewis noted prior
to considering this in the next
meeting, happy to bring down
copies momentarily.
Thank you Councilmember
Mosqueda. And again, this item
will come back to us so we have
further opportunities to ask
questions. In the meantime,
before we sign off on it. Uh, I
don
t see I think Councilmember
Mosqueda that
s your old hand,
I believe. Uh, unless you have
an additional question. Old
man. Hold hand. All right.
Thank you very much. Uh, thank
you. Colleagues. So, as I
mentioned, uh, legal review of
this item is still in process.
We
re going to defer action
until the next meeting of the
committee on SEPTEMBER 22nd.
With that, we will move on on
our agenda. Thank you. Uh, our
next two items are related to
the King County Regional
Homelessness Authority. First,
we have a briefing from
executive staff and then
followed by a briefing from the
case staff on the casework
contract transition plan and
then the overview of the
corrective action plan. Uh,
we
re going to be hearing
initially from chief operating
officer of the Executive
Office, Jelani Jackson, who
s
the acting director of the
Housing and Community
Development division at dhs,
and Aaron Robert, the chief
budget officer for the
Executive office. And then I
will introduce our case here,
staff. Uh, uh, when we get to
that panel, uh, I do want to
just remind us how, uh, what
this briefing, uh, stems from.
This briefing is the result of
motion 16970, which I sponsored
with Councilmember Fain and
Dembowski, and which the
council adopted unanimously on
MAY 5th after a forensic
evaluation led by Clark
Newberry and released in APRIL,
exposed serious weaknesses in
cases this, uh, financial
management internal controls.
That motion asked the executive
to provide a report on the
future of the authority and the
steps being taken to address
the findings of the forensic
evaluation. By AUGUST 1st. And
I appreciate that the
executive, uh, complied with
that request. In the months
since, there have been
additional developments. On
JULY 1st, the executive of the
mayor of Seattle announced a
plan to stabilize right size
and reset cases, including the
transition of most locally
funded contracts back to the
city and the county,
respectively. And we
ll hear
more details on that in a
second. Uh, as I noted, the
executive delivered the report
we requested actually a day in
advance on the 31st JULY 31st,
probably because AUGUST 1st was
society. Uh, today gives us the
chance to hear about the
executive
s recommended steps
regarding the authority, the
status of the contract
transition plan, and the status
of the correct corrective
action plan that Kasahara is
implementing. After hearing
from the executive team, uh, we
will hear from Kcra leadership
directly. Um, thank you. And
I
m going to turn it over to,
uh, ceo Kim.
Thank you so much. For the
record, my name is Heyo Kim,
chief operating officer for
Executive Zahilay chair Baron.
Members of the committee, thank
you so much for having us here.
Um, as you mentioned, the
executive delivered a report to
you all, um, the, uh, the
report is fairly extensive, I
think, in the details. And so,
uh, Aaron, Jelani and myself
are here to provide an overview
of what was, uh, contained in
that report and to be able to
answer any questions. Um, as
you, uh, I think, um, chair,
you you kind of took my top
line, um, in JULY, the
executive and mayor, uh,
announced next steps to
stabilize right size and reset
our King County Regional
Homelessness Authority. The
joint plan focused on
stabilizing, right sizing and
resetting Kcra chase future. So
today we will be speaking
mostly about the stabilizing
and rightsizing approach, the
work to reset the future of
Kcra is going to be ongoing for
the next several months. Um,
and we are committed to working
with this body as well as the
legislative body over at the
city and the k Sara Jay
governing board, in conjunction
with ceo Kennison and her team
to ensure an extensive
stakeholder process. Um, but
that has not yet been launched
quite yet. Uh, the county and
the city remain committed to,
um, sorry, just lost my cheat
sheet. Uh, a regional response
to homelessness and to
strengthening Kcra so that it
can fulfill its
responsibilities. Some of the
guiding principles, um, really
defining and informing this
work is that providing high
quality shelter services and
housing to our region
s most
vulnerable community members
should not be disrupted. Uh,
that creating clear pathways
for individuals to exit from
homelessness to shelter and
services and to long term
housing, uh, is our North Star
and should be our North Star.
And that understanding
homelessness as a regional
issue that requires
coordination and collaboration
with government partners across
King County should be bedrock
to how we think about the
future of the work. And so, as
you will hear from Jelani and
from Aaron, uh, some of the key
considerations that, uh, both
the executive and the mayor
embarked upon, um, in making
the decision to, uh, transition
the contracts, the county
contracts and the city
contracts, some of the key
considerations that they had
were that, uh, protecting
federal funding for this region
was absolutely critical. As you
all know. Um, this year, we are
looking at about $67 million in
federal funds that that funnel
through our continuum of care
to serve, um, the most
vulnerable residents in our
community. Um, that is $67
million. That cannot be easily
replaced by either the county
or the city or state partners.
Um, another key consideration
for us was that minimizing
service disruption for clients
and providers was absolutely
critical. Uh, we know that this
is not a transition that
s
going to be easy, but we
really, really wanted to ensure
that we were taking pains to
listen to our service providers
to understand how to ensure a
smooth transition. And you will
hear Jelani speak to that a
little bit. And then again, the
regional reset conversations,
although not quite yet
launched, are going to be, um,
are um, approach to
understanding and to hearing
from a diverse set of
stakeholders to so that we
maintain a regional approach to
homelessness. And I think that
is critical that it is both the
King County and the mayor who
have expressed that commitment
at their JULY press conference.
Uh, that commitment has, uh, we
have reiterated that commitment
in the report, the written
report that was handed to the
council. And we are here to
again, emphasize that the
regional approach to
homelessness is one that the
executive and the mayor are
committed to. And, um, that the
regional reset conversations
will help inform the
recommendations that come from
that. So with that, I
m going
to turn it over to Aaron, all
right.
Thank you for the record.
Aaron Robert, chief budget
officer in King County
Executive Office. So I
m going
to talk a little bit about
stabilizing Kcra, really with a
focus on financial processes
and the financial work that
s
been going on. One of the key
efforts to stabilize Kcra is
really embedding a external
financial consultant. That
s
turning point strategic plans
to strategic partners. Um,
they
re under contract until
the end of the year. They
re
looking at a few specific
things in their scope of work.
So an assessment of the cra
financial operations, by being
embedded, working closely with
the organization, they
re
working through that issue
right now. Um, financial
stabilization and oversight and
providing that. So as
additional financial
transactions come in, starting
to review those kind of over
the shoulder look for Kcra,
understanding what the
financial transactions are,
making sure they
re
appropriate, appropriate and
making sure they
re following
internal controls and
procedures that have been
documented. Um, a county
reconciliation and financial
remediation, the accounting
reconciliation is complex.
There are thousands of
transactions that that have
happened over the last five
years. There
s multiple systems
that have been involved. So
they are going through that at
a very detailed level and
starting to figure out exactly
what has happened in the past
and will eventually be able to
provide to the county
executive, to the county
Council, and to Katara. An
assessment of where the dollars
have been spent. What is
Unreconciled unreconciled and
what we need to do moving
forward. So that is a complex
and time consuming effort, but
they are doing that now and
making good progress. In my
opinion. Um, contract
administration support. So as
new contracts come in, how do
we administer them? How do we
document our practices? They
re
working through that as well.
Also advising on stabilization
moving forward. We
ve asked
them as part of their scope of
work to help develop proposals
on the size of the organization
moving forward and financial
processes and procedures that
should be embedded moving
forward. So turning Point
strategic partners are working
through all of that. We have
weekly meetings with them, with
their finance teams. They also
are reporting out to the
finance committee periodically
and to the executive sponsors
group. So I
m feeling pretty
confident in where they are and
where they
re going. But there
is still a lot more work to do
with the strategic partners.
Um, they
ve been embedded since
JULY. They
re going to be there
until the end of the year, and
we
ll have to assess the next
steps from there. Um, and I
just want to say that some of
the things that I
m really
looking for from them, and I
want to be really clear, is,
um, reconciliation of the
accounts. We need to understand
the details of those accounts.
They
re working towards, that.
We need to start seeing
improvement in the negative
cash balance at the investment
pool, and we need to start
seeing cycle times for this
invoicing process to go down.
That lag time is really driving
some of our issues. So those
are some of the things that I
m
really looking for from Turning
Point and from Kcra.
Thank you. And I
ll apologize
for not naming you. And calling
people out there. So I
apologize I missed that on my
notes. Thank you. Jelani.
Jelani Jackson, acting director
of the Housing and Community
Development Division of dhs.
All right, Kcra will retain its
core regional responsibilities.
These functions are the
backbone of our region
s
homelessness services system.
As contracts transition back to
the city of Seattle and King
County, Kcra can focus its
efforts on its key functions
like the point in time count,
our region, severe weather
response, coordinated entry,
and most importantly, being the
lead agency for all continuum
of care activities for King
County. The Housing and
Community Development Division
of dhs will be ready to
administer up to 100 contracts
starting in JANUARY 2027.
Extending existing contracts
will provide consistency for
providers through the
transition. In this way, they
can focus on delivering the
services our region needs. Hcd
staff will anticipate that a
small portion of contracts will
likely stay with Kcra work to
determine the exact number of
contracts, and the
corresponding cost is ongoing.
From the contract transition
timeline, you can see this is a
month by month, uh, sort of
macro overview. It
s a very
high level overview of the work
that dhs and hsd will conduct
from now until the end of the
year. Preparations are underway
to ensure dhs is ready to take
on this body of work. As noted
in table two of the Kcra
Contract Transition Plan, we
are adding ten Career Service
fte who will be tasked with
monitoring contracts, fiscal or
compliance related work to
ensure dhs will meet its hiring
timeline. We onboarded one
temporary term limited human
resource analyst in JULY.
Through the end of the year,
dhs will be focused on hiring,
training, and preparing our
staff for the successful
transfer of contract starting
in JANUARY, the City of
Seattle
s Human Services
Department and dhs have hosted
two meetings with providers
from across the county. Our
growing invite list includes
more than 50 providers and
represents the full spectrum of
homeless services. During these
meetings, King County staff
have shared timely updates with
the community and answered
questions. These joint meetings
will continue through the end
of the year. The county and the
city are committed to ensuring
there is no interruption to
services or provider payments.
Finally, work to reduce the
burden on our contractors has
begun. Hsd and dhs will
continue this work through
2027. Dhs has decades of
experience managing complex
homelessness and housing
investments, including many of
the contracts that will
transition from Kcra back to
dhs. Prior to the creation of
Kcra, the Housing and Community
Development Division of dhs
successfully administered many
federally and locally funded
contracts with providers
throughout King County.
Great. Um, and so then that
takes us to the future of Kcra.
And as the executive and the
mayor. Um, indicated at their
JULY press conference, um, and
that was as indicated in the
written report that we provided
we do plan to embark on a
series of extensive stakeholder
conversations. Um, the the list
of council, I
m sorry, the list
of stakeholders and kind of
interests are identified on
this. Um, just for I think just
to illustrate the breadth of
stakeholders. But it
s
certainly not an exhaustive
list. Um, and really, we are
looking at this, these regional
reset conversations in sort of
three phases. We have an, um,
we are going to identify an
initial group of individuals to
have pre engagement
conversations with um, and um,
those pre engagement
conversations will help inform
um the engagements. The more
extensive engagements that we
plan to take and the questions
that we are really posing are
really, I think fundamental to
what prompted Kcra to begin
with. Um, what were some of the
gaps in our regional services
that Kcra was meant to address?
Um, and why, you know, were
some of those promises or were
some of those solutions ever,
um, did they ever materialize?
You know, why or why not? Um, I
think the what we wanted to do
was not get into the weeds of
the tactical sort of what, the
structure, but really ask more
fundamental strategic questions
around how how should a
regional homelessness, um,
system and what does that
regional coordination, what
should it look like? And what
s
missing, uh, even in its
current state today, um, the
synthesizing of information
will then take place. And
finally recommendations will be
delivered. Um, the all of this
work is expected to be
completed by the end of the
first quarter of next year. Um,
and again, as I mentioned
earlier, we plan to and have
already spoken to some of the
governing board members. Uh,
certainly ceo Kinnison and her
team, to ensure that these are
conversations that we hold
together with Kcra. At the same
time, uh, and stakeholder work
will include people who have
been critics. We need to listen
to what those critics have
said. We need to understand
what the gaps are and what the
problems are in order to inform
the future of k star. So with
that, we are happy to answer
any questions that you MAY
have.
Thank you very much. I know
you
re going to have a lot of
questions coming your way. Let
me let me just start off with
one, because this was kind of
one of the central things in
the motion that we sent over to
the executive. And I just
answered on the report, but we
didn
t really tackle it
verbally. And one of the
questions that we asked was our
recommendation from the
executive on whether to take
action at this point to, uh, to
solve cases. Che. Could you
elaborate a little bit on the
recommendation that the
executive center and the
report?
Sure. I do believe that in our
cover note, the executive
respectfully requested at this
time that any motion to
dissolve Kcra che be paused and
held in abeyance until we have
we, the executive and the mayor
are have the time to go through
these regional reset
conversations. And I think, you
know, fundamentally, the
executive
s position is that
before we have a clear answer
for how we are going to answer
the question of what
s next,
that we should not initiate
dissolution. Um, efforts,
because I think that is going
to be fundamentally disruptive
to the existing staff. Um, the
I think the executive, the
mayor, felt that fundamentally,
the transition of the contracts
were in and of themselves, a
significant lift, and they
really wanted to focus on that.
Um, as the, uh, in this stage
and the I think the motion to
dissolve our efforts to
dissolve kcc until we have a
clearer answer on what the what
the what. Next question is, um,
could be also demoralizing to
the existing staff that still
will remain with Kcra. Um, and
that are fundamentally needed
to continue to implement our
continuum of care dollars, as
well as some of the other
regional services that will
remain in Sierra Che.
Thank you very much. Uh,
colleagues, questions, comments
and a reminder that we are
going to have a follow up
presentation regarding the
corrective action plan from kkk
leadership. But I think, uh,
I
ll open up for questions.
Councilmember Dunn.
Thanks. Thanks for being here.
I appreciate your work on this.
Um, obviously an important
issue. I personally believe
that this issue of homelessness
generally is the premier local
issue of our generation. I
think it
s a really tough nut
to crack, and a 600 word
editorial in the Seattle Times
doesn
t really necessarily give
it justice. As I wrote the
other day. And and anyone who
writes an editorial knows that
the Seattle Times continues to
own the headline. They will
write the headline however they
want to write it. Right. It
s
catchy. So they said we should
something to the effect of turn
our back on housing first. Now,
I would not have written that
that way. I would have written
it differently. Um, and I want
to talk about it for a second.
But if we look at this issue,
there
s about half a dozen ways
we can responsibly structure
our homelessness response in
King County. One way is to put
a regional organization
together, like we did at the
council. Rod and I were
involved in some of that.
There
s others. We can bring it
in-house into the
jurisdictions, we can do
partnerships, we can do private
sector work. There
s a lot of
different models across the
country. And I think, you know,
I
ve been a tough critic for
Kcra, but it is a result of
action of this council.
Interestingly. So we found that
there
s some challenges there
and we
re retooling it, I
commend that. I think that
s
great. I think the executive
shows leadership in coming in
and in changing its focus a
little bit. That
s I think
that
s good. I still think, as
they say, the system is
perfectly designed right now to
get the results it is currently
achieving. Um, and that
ll be
the same if we just move the
deck chairs around, um, without
a substantial shift in the
policy focus that underlies
what we
re trying to do to
reduce homelessness. And so,
you know, there
s this crazy
political dynamic out there.
It
s all housing first or it
s
all.
You know, mental health and
behavioral health and substance
use recovery. The truth, I
think, and you guys have all
toured plenty of homeless camps
and have a lot of friends
who
ve been homeless and know
people and work with it. The
truth is, there multiple
pathways to get people off the
streets. We need all those
strategies in the toolbox,
right? I think we need all of
them. I don
t think we should
get rid of housing first
completely. What I think we
should do is think about a
bunch of levers, policy levers.
Right. Let
s dial down some of
the the resources going to go
to that traditional housing
first model and reallocate that
into drug and alcohol
addiction, mental health, job
training. Um, I think that
s
where we should we should be
going. We got a brand new
executive. Right. Great.
Executive is out in my
district. Last night we were
speaking together, having a
good time. And one of the
things he
s going to be judged
on in four years is what has
happened with homelessness,
with the trajectory of
homelessness. It
s an empirical
data point. He
s going to get a
grade on it, a plus c minus
whatever it is. I just don
t
see how you can get a different
achieve a different result
simply by altering the
management structure. It
s got
to address the underlying
policies. And so that is my
question to you. To what extent
are you willing to think about
changing the underlying
policies we are using to attack
homelessness moving forward? Is
that a part of this
conversation?
I think certainly those
conversations will be had
during the regional reset
conversations. I will also say
Councilmember Dunn, um, the
executive has three years. He
doesn
t have four years. Um,
and so the sense of urgency,
um, his re-election is in three
years, not four. Um, the sense
of urgency that he has on this
problem is absolutely matches
your passion for this. Um, I
will say this. I think the
executive has, um, the kind of
all, um, utilizing all the
tools that you just mentioned
are, um, is an approach that he
empirically, empirically has
also embarked upon. Um, he was
the leader when the council
passed your, you know, sort of
unprecedented crisis care levy.
Um, that is a, you know, it
s a
new tool in the toolbox to
address substance use disorder
in so many communities. Um, the
fact that among the first
things that the executive
prioritized when he came into
office was 500 units in 500
days. Those units we are
looking at a full range of
housing type, uh, and really
emphasizing shelter. The
executive has also launched his
Breaking the Cycle work group
that is asking the urgent
question, even though the
population is not, you know,
the the as as expansive as our
broader homelessness
population, the Breaking the
Cycle workgroup is looking at
the population of individuals
that have, um, uh, that show up
in multiple systems and for
whom all of those systems have
not addressed their needs.
Right. These are the criminal
justice systems. This is the
substance abuse, you know,
dealing with substance abuse
disorders. Individuals who are,
you know, have been in and out
of shelters. And right now, I
think the executive, by
acknowledging that, you know,
our systems are not working for
everyone. The Breaking the
Cycle workgroup, we are
confident, will come up with
some, um, recommendations that
really zero in on those
strategic questions of why
isn
t the system that, you
know, all of us have had a hand
in designing, working for these
individuals. Um, so I think
there
s a multitude of
strategies that the executive
is looking at and the future of
this area is just one of those.
So I don
t know that, you know,
we, um, I don
t know that we
would, you know, like you said,
agree with the headline, but
certainly the executive is not
taking a, uh, let
s just do
what we
ve always done
approach. He is asking all of
us to challenge our assumptions
about what
s worked before, and
to work with a great sense of
urgency on the issue of
homelessness.
That
s great. And that
s that
s
a good place to start. I mean,
I can
t disagree at all with
that. In fact, the fact we
re
having this conversation is a
great place to start. He
s
looking at the structure, which
is the first thing you got to
do, and then you got to get to
the policies. I just I know I
everybody at Kcra and everybody
in the housing, industrial, uh,
nonprofit sector that we have
working very hard are doing
good work and they
re trying
very hard. Like, I don
t I
don
t question their
intentions. Everybody
s trying.
I just see the results of the
number of unhoused on our
streets getting worse and worse
and worse. So I think that it
s
not unreasonable to question
not only the structure, but
also the policies. And I really
encourage I know we all have
that talking point in our head.
Well, it
s empirically proven
that Housing First reduces
homelessness. Well, it
s not
out here. Not at all. In fact,
last year we were the worst in
the country. And the aggregate
number of homelessness in the
state and most of us in King
County can
t argue with that.
Worst, worst out of 50. Um, and
so some of these nonprofits and
other groups might be
disappointed that we change
priorities over the next months
and years. Um, to emphasize
other areas. It doesn
t mean
they
re not profit won
t be
involved in the work that we
ll
be doing for that. I just want
to be clear about that. I hope
that you consider policy
shifts. I think you will find
if you do and you model them
after best practices that are
proven to work across the
country, that we will start to
have positive results. That
s
all. And I will support you in
those efforts. If you choose to
go there.
Thank you. Councilmember Dunn.
Uh Councilmember Dembowski.
Thank you. I just wanted to
engage a little bit here along
the lines of Councilmember
Dunn
s, uh, uh, statement and
just put a little detail on it.
If I might. Regan. Um, with
respect to the the results, I
mean, this is from the most
recent point in time count from
Kcra from 2022 to 2026, total
homelessness in King County is
up 37% from 13,300 folks to
18,300. Unsheltered
homelessness is up from 2022 to
2026. 54% from 7600 folks to
11,800 folks. Okay. Our
emergency shelter beds are down
from 2025 to 2026 by 689.
Unsheltered family homelessness
is up 78% from 1253 to 2200
families. So Councilmember
Dunn
s point about what we
re
doing isn
t working is correct.
He has suggested in his op ed
and elsewhere that when things
aren
t working with our current
policy, we might want to
reflect on the policy and quit
saying that it
s evidence based
and that it
s delivering the
results, because I agree with
you, Reagan. It
s not. So
there
s work to do there. This
discussion is around how we do
it. Councilmember Dunn has
ideas. I
ve got ideas. Council
member Fain has asked every
member on the dais, and the
executive has policy ideas, and
that
s what we were sent here
to do. And the problem with the
King County Regional Homeless
Authority is it takes seven
policymakers on this dais out
of the game. We send two over,
and the executive, the city of
Seattle sends two over. And the
mayor and our suburban city
partners sent some
representatives. This
government, following the work
of Jim Ellis in the 50s and
60s, was built to be the
regional government
As the region boomed, as it
grew, he saw that there were
going to be pressing regional
problems that needed
cooperation across municipal
boundaries. Your point, ceo
Kim, about a regional response
to homelessness is is correct.
We
ve got to cooperate around
the region. But would say after
trying this for seven years now
at the Kcra, where the vision
seemed to be, we were going to
have kind of one answer with
maybe some subregional plans.
It that hasn
t worked. What
what the South County
leadership wants to do is
different than what folks want
to do in the city of Seattle.
We cannot I don
t believe
politically have a one size
policy response to this
challenge around the region.
And if we allow some
experimentation in different
things, we might see, you know,
what works. But the the point I
want to deliver here is we
ve
got a structure that doesn
t
allow us to work on this
effectively through the Kcra,
and I don
t see, particularly
after you bring the contracts
back or direct service
provision, what the value
proposition is, what the
business case is to have an
entirely separate standalone
government with with
confederated leadership to run
just a little piece of this.
The Mis, the coordinated entry,
the emergency response and the
continuum of care. Those are
regional functions. And I don
t
understand why this regional
government shouldn
t be charged
with carrying them out. We did
much of them, you know, before.
I don
t know why we would pay
executives, accountants,
auditors, lawyers for a whole
separate government to do that.
Maybe in the course of these
regional conversations, the
value proposition will
magically appear. But I don
t
see it. And I think we ought to
send a clear signal that there
we can have the discussions
there, but we don
t need a
separate government to do it.
And I need to say there is some
urgency to this. The audit that
triggered this current
conversation concluded with a
review of a time period, I
think, through last JULY. So
more than a year ago, and we
still, as we sit here today,
don
t have clarity and answers.
In AUGUST of 2026 about the
financial condition with the
books are at the Kaikoura. Why
does that matter to the county?
Were there banker? I chair the
Executive Finance Committee. I
am extremely nervous. The we
re
like to run the checking
account to put it in plain
English. Right. The last
meeting we had a few weeks ago,
just before late JULY, they
were $65 million overdrawn, $65
million. Our policies allow for
an occasional inadvertent
deficit, but this has gone on
and on and on for years now.
Part of it is, I think, some
mismanagement. It
s part of
it
s overspending, but part of
it
s also the structure. They
don
t they never set up at the
cash and operating capital
system for, in other words, to
have the float to address the
difference between time money
was received and time going
out. So we charge interest on
that. That
s added some costs.
Why we would continue that
structure to send money out to
a third party entity from a
financial sense perspective, I
don
t know. But I will just say
the longer this goes on and I
understand from MR. Robert,
maybe this is ticked down to 50
million or so now, but I
m
going to send a letter as
CHAIRMAN Of the Executive
Finance Committee to the case.
Haha. We have a meeting, I
think, Thursday, because I said
don
t cancel it. We need an
update on this. Asking for what
the status is of the accounts
receivable and what the plan is
to make this pool whole. To get
back to zero. And I think we
need to have answers in a
couple of weeks. It
s gone on
for too long and I don
t
believe that we can, in good
conscience, allow it to go on
for another year or another six
months. While regional
conversations occur. This is
very, very, very serious. We
re
out of compliance with our
audit standards. We
re out of
compliance with our policies.
And I do not support loaning
the cra money because I
m not
sure how they would pay it
back. So, uh, I wanted to
follow up on Councilmember
Dunn
s, I think, correct
remarks about policy, but also
how you make change in the
policy is driven in large part
by the ability to do it. This
dais has the regional policy
committee has elected
representatives from all over
the county at the rpc.
Remember, county members. City
of Seattle. Members, suburban
city members. We come together.
We have structures here. This
work can be done and it is
important work. But I
ve
concluded I don
t think that
the executive in his report,
the stabilized is fine. I
d
call it an accounting
transition is what I replace
right size with. And then
terminate, not reset. I think
you got three wrong words. Uh,
and, um, with that, I do think
the exac and the mayor have
done a good job in making a big
first step at bringing these
contracts back, because that
will help mitigate some of the
ongoing problems. But final
question in the motion, or
maybe it
s the first question I
have the statement we asked for
an assessment of the risk to
the county
s investment pool
and identification of completed
or recommended actions to
mitigate this is on page 259 of
the materials page. I think
four of your appendix. This is
inadequate in terms of a
response to this risk that
we
re looking at here. It says
kcrw
s negative cash balance
presents several risks to the
county investment pool,
including negative findings by
the auditor
s office and
repayment uncertainty. And then
the final sentence is something
I don
t understand a
recommended action to mitigate
risks is analysis of the
county
s repayment obligations.
I don
t know what you
re saying
there. Maybe you can enlighten
me a little bit, but this area
of the report and actually this
body of work needs attention.
Thank you. Councilmember
Dembowski. And first of all, I
would agree that the negative
cash balances is a risk,
something that I am also
worried about. Um, there is a
risk to the investment pool.
There is a risk to the county
s
general fund and we have to
mitigate that. So I would be
definitely supportive of in our
discussion on Thursday, going
through and figuring out what
exactly to request from Kcra.
So the analysis that that needs
to happen and that is happening
is reviewing all of those
unreconciled receivables and
figuring out where they came
from and who ultimately should
be paying for them. To the
degree that we get to a point
where there are receivables or
there
s cash that has been
spent that we cannot recover,
we will have to do some sort of
repayment plan in conjunction
with the city and the county to
fill that gap. And that
s
that
s the analysis that
s
referring to. We have to figure
out what exactly the gap is and
then work with the city to
figure out when and how to pay
that gap. So that is that is
the next steps. Turning point
has done a good job. And in
starting to go deep into those
accounting transactions, and we
need to see the results of that
to really get there. So that
that is what that is referring
to.
Thank you very much, Aaron. I
agree, I think in plain
English, once we figure out
what the deficit is, in other
words, we receive all the
receivables that are to be
received. Call it. Well, it
s
65 million there, but maybe
it
s 50 million today. Yeah.
Whatever
s left and it
s going
to be eight, ten, 12, $15
million. Who knows what it is.
The city and the county are
going to have to write a check.
That
s correct. I would just
like to stop the bleeding. I
would just like to stop
reading. And the the thrust of
the of this report seems to
indicate that there is a
possibility that this entity
would continue on, and I don
t
see the value proposition from
a policy perspective or a
financial perspective. I just I
just don
t I don
t see
it.
Councilmember Fain.
Thank you. And thank you for
all of your work on this. I
know many of you weren
t
present until recently, but
you
re diving in and I
appreciate your thoughtfulness.
And, um, in your approach. Uh,
I
d like to tag on to what my
colleagues have said so far
about, um, the lack of truly
regional approach in allowing
the entire county a voice and a
say in how dollars are spent
or, um, contracts are selected.
Um, and so beyond whether or
not Kcra exists, which it will
largely need to do for Coc
funding. And in that piece, I
understand. Um, but beyond
that, the county is going to be
taking on 100 of these, um,
provider contracts in JANUARY.
And so I understand that the
county and the city are working
towards a no for, um, in the
later part of 2027. So I have
two questions. Slash concerns
relating to that. One is will
all of the contracts be, um,
part of the nova, meaning that
the county and the city will
align on, um, funding and, um,
providers? The idea is really
to address the previous
structure, which was everybody
was contracting with different
providers and nobody knew what
anyone else was doing. So I
understand the need to
collaborate and understand that
we shouldn
t, um, essentially
have providers potentially
receiving the same amount of
funding to do the same work for
the county and the city. That
being said, I worry if all of
the contracts are going to be
under the Nova, we
re going to
run into the same issue, which
is, um, that the entire county
might not have a voice in how
services are provided in
different cities and different
regions. So that
s one around
the nova and then the other,
uh, question I have and I
d
like to hear a little bit more
about is how will the council
be a part of, um, oversight
input into the contracts after
JANUARY? Um, currently there
are two representatives on the
cra that receive updates on the
status of the contracts, the
outcomes, um, and all of that.
But once the hundred contracts
go over to dcs, will we get I
mean, ideally we would not just
get an annual report that
council would be able to
provide some input in some
manner, as suggested by my
colleagues, in how those
dollars should be. Um, spent.
So those are kind of the two
areas I
d love to hear more
about.
Do you want me to start?
Yeah, I can start.
You going to turn on your
thing, Jelani?
Stone there. Uh, I can start
with the first question and
partial answer. Um, so, look,
every crisis offers plenty of
opportunity to look at the way
we do business and to strive
for efficiencies and to, more
importantly, do things better.
So, uh, the main effort here
between the county and the city
is to really look at the way we
contract. Can we harmonize
language? Can we synchronize on
outcomes that we want to see,
you know, settle on some
boilerplate text for our
contracts and just generally
simplify the process. Um, and
the second part to that too is
also look at who pays for what.
So, you know, King County
Seattle and King County, does
King County pay for a contract
for services that are delivered
in Seattle or to Seattle? Take
that on and in return, if
there
s going to be some fun
swapping, how do we look at
that as a region? And so those
are some of those efforts that
we
re trying to do to simplify
the process and also make
things better.
I would say also, um, the, the,
the, the whole point of Anova
process is to ensure
competitive processes in
contracting that has not, I
believe that when Kcra Chase
started, there was an intent to
put both the city and county
contracts out for procurement
and that never happened. And so
part of what, um, what we
wanted to do was the initial
step in rolling the contracts
back, uh, minimise disruption.
But, um, the conversations, I
think, uh Councilmember Fain.
To your point, we do need to
have a strategic conversation
about how we are planning to re
procure those contracts. Are
these the right strategies? Do
we have the right mix of
strategies employed and how we
are thinking about these funds?
I think those are not questions
that we have answers to today.
But, uh, when the contracts
come back, we will be working
closely with our provider
community and addressing, you
know, some of the policy
questions, quite frankly, that
some of your colleagues raised.
Um, I think the other piece of
this, uh, the contracts, when
they do come back to the
county, uh, they will be they
will be put forward through the
county
s budgeting process. So
you will have a recommendation
from the executive in his
second omnibus for the amount
of county contracts. Again, we
are hoping that, um, you don
t
do much to change them because
we want to maintain continuity
for this next year. But once
the contracts come back, once
that, you know, sort of, um,
bucket of funds come back to
the county, we will, as with
every other budget, uh, that
goes through the budget
process, the executive branch
will be working and
collaborating closely with the
Council on the right
strategies, the right mix, the
right dosage for those funds.
Thank you. Uh Councilmember
Mosqueda. Did you want to jump
in now? Go ahead.
Um, well, first I want to say
thank you so much for, as the
chair said, um, providing the
report, we know that there
s a
lot of moving parts here. So
thank you for sending this over
and working in partnership with
the council on the timeline
that had been suggested.
Obviously, there was a lot of
work that went into this with,
um, the announcement made with
the city of Seattle as well. So
we appreciate you were both
responding to the report
request, um, acting in real
time to figure out how to
stabilize and trying to figure
out both how to do that in a
way that minimized impact on
those experiencing homelessness.
Are contracted providers, and
really making sure that we are
sending a message to all in
this region that here in King
County, we can govern as
opposed to what we see in the
other Washington. We are going
to offer stability to folks.
And I still think that that
s
an important message for us as
a collective body, to be
sending in this moment with so
much uncertainty, especially
around some of the dollars that
have been talked about, that we
will continue to strive for as
much stability and certainty as
we can, not only for the
contracted providers, but by
doing so, providing stability
to those who are experiencing
homelessness or the folks that
will fall into homelessness. So
thank you for submitting this
report. And that said, I know
that there
s a lot that is
still in the works. I think
there
s some conversations in
this, uh, well, some language
in this report that really is
more of a to be fleshed out.
Right, and along the lines of
what Councilmember Fain noted,
I do want to make sure that the
council and not only the
members who are sitting on the
board, but the members of the
council have an active role in
figuring out what those next
steps look like. Because, um,
this is an area that is clearly
of interest to members of the
media as has been described,
but most importantly to members
who are providing direct
services and wanting to see
that certainty. Um, I do have a
question about how contracts
are being moved over, and then
I have some comments, if you
don
t mind, MISTER Chair. Um, I
know that dhs is trying to
ensure continuity of services
with 100 plus contracts
transferring over. Uh, JANUARY
2027. And in order to do so, we
need staff. And you
ve talked
about that a little bit, but I
just want to make sure that
we
re not biasing our hiring
and recruitment of the staff
that could potentially come in
and be ready to ensure
continuity and know best the
relationships with the
community organizations who are
trying to provide care, not
biasing those individual staff
members because they worked at
Kcra. We
ve talked a lot about
the concern the entity has, and
we even heard concern today in
public testimony about the
executive director. I just want
to make sure that the folks who
are on the front line, many of
whom we
ve heard from today in
public comment and we
ve
received a letter, are not
being biased in some way. If
they are also applying for
positions within dhs. So can
you confirm for us or assure
for us that that is not
filtering in to the analysis of
who gets a first round of
interviews? And for us to be
sure that that continuity is
preserved? I think that
s a
really critical piece for the
community to know that we are
trying to maintain a network,
even if it is not within the
existing system.
In the most simplest terms,
yes, we are going to make sure
that folks are not biased at
all. We recognize that the
staff at Kcra do hard work
every day. Many of them were
colleagues of mine when I was a
case manager in the field,
housing individuals in this
county myself. We are going to
we
re going to hold a
competitive hiring process
that
s in alignment with our
agreement with Pro Tech 17. We
also expect current cra
employees who are interested in
King County employment or
frankly, for employment at the
city of Seattle to be very
competitive because, frankly,
they have experience doing the
very work that we
re seeking to
do.
Okay. Thank you. Um, and then
as we know as well, um, dhs and
Kcra, both entities have been,
um, found to have had slow
execution of contracts or
making payments. Right. That
s
not unique to Kcra. It
s an
issue that I know this new
executive is actively working
on at dhs, but I
m concerned
about additional capacity, um,
being taken on before those
staff members are trained up.
So can you remind us what is
actively happening right now to
remediate the existing issues
at dhs? And in regards to
payment of contracts on time?
Um, because we do get a lot of
emails lately, I think coming
from a place of wanting to make
sure that every t is crossed,
every eye is dotted, but
sometimes that triple checking
almost, um, more than that, I
heard one from one contractor
last month that there was six
different reports that they
were asked to fulfill in one
time, one month time frame, and
all of that
s leading to
delayed payments for existing
contractors. So can you talk
about building capacity as you
try to onboard additional
people and take on additional
work?
Yeah, I can start. So, yes, um,
part of our effort is to bring
in this capacity early of I
noted earlier, we
ve hired an
hr specialist who can just
focus on hiring and bringing
staff on board. This will
provide critical time for folks
to be trained properly, receive
updated fraud prevention
training to ensure that staff
are ready to go. Not into
JANUARY or to summer, but much
earlier than that. Second, the
team that this work is going to
is very experienced with this
work. Many of them worked for
King County and work with these
contractors. Uh, the contracts
we
re talking about prior to.
Kcrw
s, uh, you know,
formation. So we
re working
hard to make sure that it
s a
smooth process as possible.
We
re starting this work early.
We
re engaging in a lot of
conversations with the folks
that we will ultimately have
contracts with. I
m also happy
to say that we
ve looked at
every individual contract. It
s
really only about 10% of the
contracts and totals about ten
we don
t have an existing
business relationship with. So
we
re in conducting some early
outreach to make sure that
those folks are ready to
conduct business with the
county.
Great.
And maybe just the last
comment, if I MAY, and thank
you. I was, um, listening
intently on the zoom as I was
on the way here, but I wanted
to just underscore for maybe
members of the public that are
listening. Um, I think there
s
shared frustration between the
executive branch and the
legislative branch, shared
frustration amongst colleagues
here on the council with where
we
re at right now with Kcra.
But I do want to make sure that
we
re not conflating the
agency. The King County
Regional Homelessness
Authority, specifically with
the decades long proven
practices of Housing First
policies, housing first is a
national standard, and it is a
proven, evidence based policy,
contrary to what the federal
administration is trying to
assume or impugn through their
continuum of care contracts and
their nova process and the
language that they use. Housing
first is an approach in our
region that has been something,
a point of pride for a very
long time. And this is true
even before the King County
Regional Homelessness Authority
was created. I give you some
examples of evidence of the
Housing First policy showing
higher retention rates. Studies
cited by the National Alliance
to End Homelessness showed that
over 80% of individuals with
complex needs remained housed
after a year. This is much
higher than other intervention
strategies. 88% of reduction.
There was an 88% reduction in
homelessness among individuals
experiencing homelessness,
according to a comprehensive
United States Department of
Housing and Urban Development
analysis that reviewed 26
separate studies. And they
found that utilizing Housing
First approach decreased
overall time spent in
homelessness by 88% and
increased general housing by
41%. That is unparalleled in
other strategies. Stability,
Foundation. They provide a
stability for getting into
homelessness. According to us,
out of homelessness. According
to the National Low Income
Housing Coalition, which
confirmed that stable housing
through Housing First provides
a necessary foundation for
personal recovery and accessing
health services. I think that
there is a really important
data point around veterans. We
saw a 55% drop in veteran
homelessness between 2009 and
2022. The federal government
paired Housing First principles
with the hud
s Vash voucher
program, resulting in a 55%
reduction in veteran
homelessness. The list goes on.
I will spare you in the moment.
I
m happy to provide this to
members of the public and my
colleagues and the executive
branch as well, but I want to
make sure that we don
t, in the
analysis of how we transition
away from Kcra in its current
form to bringing more contracts
into the King County family and
shared responsibility with
other city jurisdictions, not
just Seattle, but with other
city jurisdictions. I want to
make sure that we
re not
conflating the rise in
homelessness with the failure
of, um, a policy that has
actually been proven. Housing
first is absolutely an
appropriate policy that has
decades long data behind it,
and our region needs to, I
think, look at every evidence
based strategy, especially when
there
s compounding tragedies
of the opioid crisis, rising
costs for housing in our
region, and the need for us to
provide that stability compared
to what we
re seeing at the
federal level. I thank you for
hearing those statistics,
because I think that there
s
shared and understandable
frustration with Kcra. And as
we seek to try to mitigate for
the problems that we see at
Kcra, we do need to remain
focused on what has worked. And
for me and for the statistics
that our team has looked at and
for the nation, including in
the previous administration,
previous administrations
through hud, they point to
Housing First as a proven
strategy to get folks out of
homelessness. So much more to
do in terms of investment in
that area, but just want to
make sure that
s not being
conflated.
Thank you. Councilmember
Mosqueda. Um, let me close out
this section and before I call,
uh, case leadership, since we
had questions about the
financial situation, I want to
give them an opportunity to
provide an update on the
corrective action plan. But
just as we close this section,
uh, first of all, I want to
thank the executive for, uh,
for their work on the report. I
understand that part of it is
incomplete in a sense, because
I think some of the questions
that we asked, I think your
response is we need more time
and engagement to be able to
tackle them. And I appreciate
that. And I, I, I think
ultimately I agree with that.
And I think one of the things
that I would highlight is I saw
a pretty, you know, what I
would consider deliberate, uh,
but tight timeline through
first quarter of 2027 to be
able to make those decisions.
So I don
t see this as an
indefinite, um, trying to
balance the engagement that you
want to have. I also think that
we need to be very careful with
the fact that we
re in the
middle of a federal application
process with the continuum of
care. And I think, I think one
of the, you know, one of the
guiding principles, I would
describe it as do no harm,
which means don
t make the
situation worse. And I think
the loss of federal funding
would be something that would
certainly make the situation
worse. And so I think we need
to be careful about taking
actions that might undermine
our ability to be able to be
competitive for that federal
funding. And I think the steps,
you know, if our federal
partners are listening, we are,
you know, taking, you know,
we
re not taking status quo. We
are taking steps to be able to
address the issues that have
been found. Uh, but we are
continuing to have considered
to be the applicant for the
cycle until we make decisions
as to whether we, as a region,
want to take a different
approach. At least, you know,
at this moment. Uh, so I, I
support that that approach. And
I think, you know, I don
t want
to like I think there
s going
to be further conversations
into the policy debate that we
sit here. But I just wanted to
sort of state my own
perspective on, on this. Um, I,
I think there
s broad agreement
here, I think, from both
executive and legislative
branches, that the current
status quo is not acceptable.
Right. I think the numbers that
Councilmember Dembowski
highlighted are not are not
good. Uh, I think we owe to
people who are unhoused in our
region to, to, you know, work
to identify the best structure
and the best policy that we
can. And we should be open to,
you know, thinking about this
and what
s working my own
perspective. I agree with
Councilmember Mosqueda that I
think Housing First is and is a
model that has been shown to be
effective. The problem is that
the, you know, as the model
suggests, that housing is the
key part, and that
s the part
that we
re missing in our
community. And I think
appreciate, you know,
Councilmember Dunn your
perspective about potentially
trying different approaches. I
think the challenge we
ve been
dealing with this, with the
with the federal funding is
that, you know, there are
people who are housed with our
current set of resources. And
so if we shift resources, as
the feds are wanting to do in
other areas without, that
creates a gap in housing. And
so that
s my concern about
being, you know, sudden in
terms of pulling resources
away. If we had a whole
additional set of resources, we
could have the conversation to
have. As it gets allocated, we
MAY need to have a conversation
as to how the current set of
resources needs to be
allocated, but we just need to
be very careful, because what I
don
t want to do is to lead to
a situation where those numbers
actually skyrocket, because
we
re losing, uh, we
re losing,
uh, current, uh, services
capacity locally. Um, so, uh, I
appreciate the work. I think I
consider this to be a, you
know, uh, not an end of a
conversation. But, uh, as the
executive noted, and engagement
over the next few months to
find a final answer, at least
from my perspective, I don
t
think I
m speaking for the
whole council. I
m just saying
from my perspective, that
s how
I heard the report. Uh, I think
there
s clearly some questions.
And so there was a motion that
the executive sent over with
this to accept the report, and
i
m going to put that on hold
unless I hear strong commitment
to that, just because I feel
like there are some questions
that people still have about
the financial picture and, and
some of the policy issues. So
we
re not going to take action
on that item. But I do want to
acknowledge the work that was
done by the executive. And in
completing that report,
colleagues and, Lois, we have
any questions for executive
staff right now? I
m going to
invite Kcra leadership to
provide an update on the
corrective action plan. Um, and
I see some notes on that
direction. So thank you very
much to our executive team. Uh,
for the work on this. And I
m
going to invite Doctor Kelly
Kinnison, who
s the ceo of
cascara chair, as well as
William Todd, who
s the
associate deputy for strategy
of Sierra Che. And they
re
going to be providing an update
on the corrective action plan,
uh, as well as any other
updates that you
d like to
provide. Thank you.
I thought I turned.
Thank you, Chair Barone, for
inviting us to give this
update. Um. Thank you. Members
of council, um, and the public
who are listening, uh, just
brief background. As folks
know, I arrived in AUGUST of
2024 to a greatly imperiled
agency that had been without
permanent leadership in many of
our departments for a year or
more. I
ve worked closely with
the governing board and city
and county partners to address
many aspects of kcr operations.
And thanks to our very talented
staff at Kcra, we
ve made a
number of improvements in the
system. Uh, for example, you
all saw in our 2026 pit count
that we saw for the first time
in many years, the rate of
growth of homelessness begin to
slow. Um, despite sort of
unabated key drivers of
homelessness in our region.
However, it became very clear,
uh, early in my tenure, that
deep expertise was needed to
untangle what was going on in
our finances after, uh, 3 to 4
years of operations, a series
of operational missteps, um,
and the need to address our
underlying cost reimbursement
financial model. I worked with
the city and county to request
a forensic evaluation to bring
transparency to our financial
situation and create a path
forward for Kcra and our
regional homeless response
system. Since receiving the
forensic evaluation in APRIL,
Casey has worked with urgency
to address issues. Surfaces
surfaced by the evaluation as
well as the longer term
structural issues within the
operations of Kcra. We also
recognize we did not have the
capacity or capability in our
finance department to do this
work, and requested embedded
support. We
re super grateful
to our city and county partners
for providing this support
through Turning Point Strategic
Advisors. Um, I
m going to turn
it over to William Towey to
provide you with an update on
our 90 day corrective action
plan and our work with Turning
Point Strategic Advisors, and
be happy to answer any
questions you have.
Thank you, Doctor Kennison,
chair, Council members. Good to
be back with you. I
m grateful
for the opportunity to be here
and share what we
re up to. I
wanted to provide a brief
update on where we are at with
the 90 day point. Here in the
case corrective action plan,
and particularly how that work
is now transitioning into
financial stabilization and
implementation work being led
by and with Turning Point
strategic partners at a high
level, the controls and
processes that strengthened
during the Cap period remain in
operation, and a number of the
original corrective action
items have now moved from
development into recurring
practice. The 90 day report
largely completes the initial
reporting cycle. Associated
with the corrective Action
Plan, but it does not represent
the end of the work. Turning
point has now completed its
initial assessment and is
embedded with our finance team
working directly on
Reconciliation monthly. Close
financial reporting, internal
controls and implementation. So
increasingly, the work that
began through the Cap is moving
into sustained implementation
and independent validation
through Turning Point. The
important distinction is that
while the formal 90 day cap
reporting cycle is concluding
the underlying financial
improvement work is continuing
and is increasingly being
incorporated into kcrw
s
ongoing financial operations.
One area where that work has
already materially improved our
understanding is the
approximately $8 million in
receivables identified in the
forensic evaluation is not
reconcilable. From the records
available at that time. Turning
Point has substantially
advanced the balance sheet
reconciliation and identified
historical accounting entries
and reporting differences that
help explain that balance. The
work is being validated against
funder records as the county
and city records, so I don
t
want to characterize the
original finding is completely
resolved, but our understanding
of that 8 million is
considerably better today than
it was when the forensic report
was issued. And at the time of
our last report to the
Committee of the whole, I also
want to be careful not to
override that result. The
original 8 million represented
a particular population
identified through the forensic
review, resolving accounting
issues with that population
does not, by itself resolve the
broader historical and
receivables reconciliation.
Turning point. In case you
re
continuing to reconcile
receivables, invoices, advances
and funder records, the broader
work MAY also identify
expenditures paid by kcrw that
were not fully reflected in
historical billings to the city
or county. The broader
reconciliation MAY identify
adjustments in either
direction. That is why we
re
continuing the transaction
level work, rather than drawing
a conclusion from any single
population or balance the
administrative overspend
identified in the forensic
evaluation is also still under
validation. We aren
t
presenting a revised historical
number today because the
balance sheet and receivables
work needs to be sufficiently
complete before that exposure
can be reliably stated in
parallel. Turning point is
developing a 2026 budget and
cash requirements plan so that
we
re addressing both the
historical reconciliation and
the forward looking management
of administrative spending. So
at this stage, we have a
greater confidence in
explaining the original $8
million finding, but we
re not
yet prepared to state a final
net historical receivables or
administrative overspend number
until that broader
reconciliation is complete.
William, can I pass you here?
Councilmember Mosqueda, I had a
question for you.
Sorry. Thank you. On the last
slide, please.
Yeah. Let me go back.
Um, on first bullet. Regarding
the 8 million, I mean, I think
that that was the biggest
takeaway from your presentation
the last time around, right? It
got quite a bit of, um, media
coverage. It definitely sparked
a conversation here. So what
exactly are you saying? That
you
re not sure that it was 8
million? Can you just clarify
for me what the takeaway.
Yeah. At the last time we were
presenting, we delved into the
topic of the Unreconciled
receivables. The Clark Newberg
forensic evaluation clearly
identified an $8 million number
in that regard. And as Aaron
pointed out earlier today, and
as I was sharing the last time
I was here as well, we
recognized that there MAY be
unreconciled receivables that
need to be clarified. And the
process that we
re close to
concluding with Turning Point
will give us final
understanding of what those
numbers are. So to be very
direct to your question, um,
the question is, were there
funds that Kcra expended to
providers for services that
were not built back to the
county or the city? And that
s
an example of what might be an
unreconciled receivable. In
this particular case. The
update today is that the work
so far with Turning Point has
gained deeper understanding of
that particular $8 million
population that they
discovered. But there there
could be others in the
different types. And and so
until we get the final
determination, we won
t have
the exact number in terms of
what is or isn
t unreconciled
and what MAY or MAY not be due
one direction or the other yet.
So it
s still pending.
Is it fair to say that you
re
flagging it might be higher
than $8 million?
Then I wouldn
t make an
estimation at this point. Yeah.
William, can I follow up on
that and just say, because I
agree with customer Mosqueda,
this was an area of focus for a
number of community members.
Understandably. Um, and I think
when when we had the
presentation in JULY, I think
the aim was to be able to like,
figure that out by the 90 day
review. So we
re not quite
there yet. But do you have an
estimate of how much longer it
might take for us to get a
final answer on that?
I do, and in fact, the notes
and comments from the next
slide lean into that a little
bit.
Don
t let me interrupt you.
Then perhaps I
ll proceed. Go
ahead. Yeah, yeah. Let me just
do that. Because they tie
together to the negative cash
balance conversation. Obviously.
And so, um, finally, I want to
distinguish the negative
balance in the King County
investment pool from an
established financial loss.
Those are not the same things
at all. The negative balance is
significant. And as
Councilmember Dembowski noted,
with this, you know,
conversation on this around it
being like a checking account
or a credit account of some
sort, it is, at its most basic
level, it means cash outflows
have exceeded reimbursed cash
and advances over time. And so
we
ve expanded more funds than
we
ve received back in. And the
cash balance by itself, though,
does not tell us what portion
represents an actual
unrecoverable deficit, which
is, as you noted, one of the
key things we
re all eager to
land on. The balance reflects
several things operating
together, paying providers
before reimbursement is
received, outstanding and
unbilled receivables fund
advances, reimbursement timing,
historical invoicing and
reconciliation differences,
accounting adjustments, and the
reconciliation will ultimately
determine whether any portion
represents expenditures that
are not recoverable. Now,
Turning Point has substantially
reconciled. Kcra cash position.
At this point, they have been
doing amazing work since
they
ve arrived, and it
s just
been really great to have them
in. But they
ve been in less
than a month with us, so things
have been moving really
quickly. But it
s been a short
window so far. The remaining
work is necessary to
distinguish, you know, the
timing differences and
recoverable receivables from
any actual unresolved deficit.
And so that
s why at this
point, it
s we don
t have an
accurate number to characterize
today. Um, but we are very,
very close on that. And so I
ll
just move on then to the next
phase, which kind of ties this
up. Turning point has
substantially completed the
reconciliation work using Cras
records and is now awaiting
complete transaction level
detail from the county and the
city to validate that work
against those records. Once
those records are received from
the county and the city, our
understanding is a turning
point. Expects to complete that
validation and reconciliation
quite quickly after that, like
a matter of weeks, they
ll need
a few weeks to process that.
And that
s the acid test
against what we
ve done
internally for full
reconciliation. We need to
check that against y
all
s
records and make sure that we
really understand it. And then
at that point, we
re going to
have the answers to all of
these core underlying
questions, because they
re
driven from the same underlying
issue. So that work allows us
to complete the validation of
the historical administrative
overspend and more reliably
distinguish outstanding
receivables and timing
differences from any actual
unresolved financial deficit.
So I would characterize the 90
day point as a transition, not
an end point. We know
considerably more today than we
did when the forensic
evaluation was completed. Some
of the original findings are
being material, materially
clarified, while other
questions remain under
validation. Our focus now is
completing the work and
continuing to strengthen kcrw
s
recurring reconciliation
monthly. Close and financial
reporting practices. Turning
point will remain directly
engaged through the next phase,
including ongoing review and
validation of those processes.
Thank you. I
m happy to answer
any questions.
Thank you. Uh, Willie, let me
let me ask you to comment. And
or, you know, one of the
questions I was raised in our
earlier conversation is, I
think Councilmember Dembowski
said, stemmed the bleeding, and
I
m just trying to figure out,
uh, post JANUARY. So the
executive, of course, is
planning to, um, to, uh, take
over the most, I guess I would
say of the of the locally
funded contracts. But under
that plan, because you will
remain responsible for the cost
money and for a state funded
contracts as well as
potentially some locally funded
contracts. It my question is,
how do we. Is there anything
that we can do to avoid the
same problem that we
ve had in
the past years? Because I think
those contracts are also kind
of on this reimbursable
situation. So you still be
paying. Is it fair to say that
you
ll still be paying
providers in advance, not in
advance of their work, but
earlier than you get
reimbursements? So what I
m
trying to get at is like, do we
still have the concern that we
will still be in a situation
where we
ll be accruing, or
Casey or Che will be accruing
interest because of that
structural issue that we
ve
haven
t been able to to, to get
around.
I think that
s a really
important question. And the
answer is no. Virtually 100% of
the challenges and difficulties
that we
re untangling today are
directly related to the local
contracts with King County and
City of Seattle. Our hud
portfolio and our commerce
portfolio is entirely clean and
straight.
Okay, so we don
t have we don
t
have concerns about that
problem recurring with the with
the federal grade.
No, no, the the the local
contracts are complex and the
never tried before efforts to
co-locate them from the
originating agencies with city
and the county to Kcra and have
an entity take over to other
entities operations. Clearly
that didn
t go very well. So
the return of the contracts
back to their origin source, I
think, is a prudent move given
the experience that has taken
place over the past few years.
Thank you colleagues. Any
questions for Kcra staff Member
Desk?
Thanks very much, William. Um,
it sounds like we
re going to
have this reconciliation on the
kind of the call it the net
deficit. In simple terms, soon.
How soon?
Um, turning point. Are working
really closely with us, and
we
re again, I can
t say enough
about the gratitude we have for
the decision to embed a
resource with us. We simply did
not have the capacity and
capability internally to do
this. They
ve been moving
really quickly. They have
completed the full
reconciliation of all of our
internal records. So we have a
good sense of what
s going on
historically over the past. And
it
s really four years, 22, 23,
24, 25. And now into 2026. Uh,
most of the issues are stemming
in the sort of 2324 range.
That
s that
s when things went
off track. And right now we
just were hoping that we will
get the records from the county
and the city from their sides
of those four years of
transactions. So that turning
point can do the full
reconciliation against the
funder records. Otherwise, we
would just be providing a
self-referential understanding
of our own records, which we
are at. But we need that
validated. We need to
understand your understanding
of what was paid and received,
and the city
s understanding of
what was paid and received in
order to fully account and
reconcile all of that. All of
those transactions.
Sorry, I heard all that, but my
question was how soon? William.
Pardon me. So that
s that. That
calls for a date or weeks or.
No, I understand, thank you.
Yeah. For, for, uh,
highlighting my lack of
response there. Turning point
are expecting to have this done
within and I hate to put them
on the spot, but like 2 or 3
weeks is what they
re.
Saying from today.
Yeah. From when they get the
materials.
And is there any holdup at the
county? We
ve got the request.
I don
t think so. They they
feel like.
It
s you have a number
internally. You know what
they
ve preliminarily
determined?
No.
Oh you don
t I thought you said
that they based on the case
Harry j records they determined
a number and now was just going
to check it against Seattle in
the county
s records.
We have a we want to say it. We
have confidence in our ability
to determine the number. Once
we get that information back
from the county in.
The city. So it
s not
constructible by your own
records.
Yeah, exactly. We want to
confirm that.
I heard something I
ll just
tell you entirely differently.
I heard in your presentation
your slides that you that the
turning points based on your
own records in your
presentation had developed a
number. And now you just wanted
to validate it against the
outside funders, the county and
the city. But now I
m hearing
that you can
t do it based on
your records. And if it
s going
to require the county and the
city records to get to the net
deficit.
To validate what we think we
have internally is how I should
have said that more accurately.
To determine or to validate.
To both. I think I think it
s
fair to say that the degree of,
um, um, work and the long
history of this, this is, this
is a complex historical
undertaking.
All of that, sir.
Yeah, yeah.
I
m just speaking as the budget
chair of this government and
with a serious concern about
where we stand and how we
ve
gotten here and how we
re going
to get out of it, and how we
not do any further harm. And
month after month after month
is going by. And I understand
it
s very complicated. And you
all are new to the scene,
relatively. But, um, there
s a
lot of words on the slides, but
no numbers, you know, no firm
numbers. And so the time for
kind of. My dad told a story.
He had an office and with MR.
Harter in the 1950s, and MR.
Harter son would go down to
have lunch and he
d take a long
lunch and someone would call
for Sylvester the son. And MR.
Harter. His dad would say, I
can almost see him coming now.
I can almost see him coming
now. This kind of feels like
that.
Yeah.
We gotta get we we
ve got to
run this to ground. Not almost,
but. But not not not not next
month. Not in two months. But
we got to get this. We got to
get this done because it
s very
serious.
Yeah. Yeah I appreciate that.
All right. And I can assure you
we
re equally eager to get to
that number. But some of that
validation with the county city
records is going to have
tremendous impact on what those
numbers could be. So it
s just
too early to state at this
point.
We
re ready to go to work to
solve it. I think we
re
prepared that there
s going to
be a check to be written. We
ll
figure it out with the city.
That
s all. Understood. And
then we can get on to figuring
out kind of what the future
holds. But I
m interested in
kind of stopping stopping the
bleeding, getting it squared
away, chewing it up, and then
and then putting this chapter
of I didn
t even put them up
here. Thousands of headlines of
bad news, you know, behind us
because it
s we
re talking
about people
s lives. Hundreds
of folks a year in this county
are dying on the street.
You know, I
m a.
And I
ve worked great with you.
You ran. Yeah. Oaks. And you
re
a tremendous leader. Um, but
we
ve set up a system here that
isn
t working, and it
s
incumbent upon us to fix it and
fix it as soon as we can.
You know, I
m 100% aligned with
you there. And I can assure
you, the bleeding has stopped.
So, you know, I
ve not been
there long. But we are. We are
a tight ship today. There
s no
no deficit. Uh, out of control
organization at the moment. We
are diligently pursuing
reconciliation of these past
issues, and we will get them
nailed down.
Councilmember Mosqueda.
Thanks for your presentation.
And this MAY be more of a
question for the actual agency.
Good to see you again. I
m
worried about a bleeding of a
different sort. I
m worried
about people leaving the
agency. Um, given the
uncertainty of what
s going to
happen to their position. Um,
and this is something that we
have flagged for our partners
as well. The concern that
people will leave Kcra and not
have the actual institution and
the capacity to provide direct
services. Can you speak to how
many people have left Kcra?
What the vacancy rate is? Do
you have statistics on turnover
rates currently at kcr? Hey,
maybe today relative to a year
ago or six months ago.
Thanks for that question. Um,
we
ve spent a lot of time as an
executive team, uh, talking
about, um, the health and
well-being of our staff and the
ability to continue with our,
our work and the mission of
Kcra. Um, and I have to say,
uh, the mayor
s office and the
executive
s office in
announcing the local contract
transition surfaced early that
this would be, you know,
difficult for Kcra staff,
particularly those whose work
is moving back to the city and
county. Um, and so we
ve been
working with our labor partners
to make sure there are clear,
um, principles for us to follow.
K Sarah j is sharing every
announcement from the city and
county and providing support
for our teams who MAY want to
follow the work. Um, we
ve had
one resignation. Um, this year
I can happily share with the
council, uh, the statistics
that you requested. Um,
Councilmember Mosqueda. I don
t
have those at hand. Um, but I
think, uh, folks are, you know,
waiting to see what happens.
We
re waiting to see what
happens. Um, my leadership in
this moment is just to be as
transparent as I can be with
those staff. Encourage them to
do what
s best for them. Um,
but obviously i
m not in a
position to guarantee anyone a
job. Um, and, uh, we are, um,
working hard to keep them
informed, give them outlets to
provide, um, input, ask
questions. Um, but we have, you
know, this is a business
decision. And and as we
ve
heard, uh, it
s very dire and
urgent. And the only lever I
control is really is payroll.
Thank you. Colleagues, I don
t
see further questions about I
just on that point, I do want
to sort of acknowledge because
we, you know, began the meeting
with, with some, uh, public
comment from staff. And I do
want to acknowledge that and
reiterate, I think the point
that you made, Doctor Kinnison,
about the fact that there are
some changes that are going to
impact people who have been
providing services to the
community, and we want to
acknowledge that. I don
t think
we want to sugarcoat the fact
that, like, these changes are
going to have a disruptive
impact on people
s lives who
have been providing services
for our region, and we
appreciate their work. And, uh,
you know, sometimes in
government, we have to make,
you know, difficult decisions.
And I think the agency is
responding in some ways to some
of the issues that were part of
the first evaluation in terms
of our administrative, uh,
budget and making sure that
we
re complying with that. And,
of course, the the changeover
of the contracts is going to
have a disruptive effect for
sure. Staff, I agree with
Councilmember Mosqueda that I
think we we should try to
figure out as a local region
with the city and the county to
figure out if there are, you
know, people who have skills,
who can come over to, to do the
work. Uh, locally. I think that
that would make sense and try
to mitigate the impacts. But we
also don
t want to overpromise.
What what
s possible, given the
limited resources that we have
to do the work. So thank you
for that. And I appreciate all
the folks from from Kcra staff
who provided public comment
today. Um, and we
ll continue
to be engaged in that
conversation. Colleagues, as I
mentioned, I sensed that we
still had questions on this. So
I
m not going to take I
m not
going to put the motion
accepting the report on, uh,
for a vote today. But I
appreciated the work that
everybody has done to get us
better informed. Um, I will
second the Councilmember
Dembowski comment earlier about
the need for kind of more
clarity on the numbers. And I
know you
re working hard, but I
think that is going to be very
important as we try to make
decisions in the coming months.
And, uh, and look forward to
continuing engagement in this
topic as, as needed. Uh, does
anybody have any other final
comments? Uh Councilmember
Lewis.
Yes. Thank you. Chair. Um,
earlier in the meeting, I
mentioned the Black Women
s
Experience study, and I just
want my colleagues to know that
for those of you who would like
to review it while you
re in
transit or otherwise being
ferried about, we do have
printed copies of those for you.
Thank you very much,
Councilmember Lewis, for
educating us. All right. Um,
Councilmember Mosqueda.
So sorry. And I just want to
thank Councilmember Lewis again
for your comments during the
earlier presentation. Um,
Councilmember Lewis has also
sent out an email to the whole
floor with the hard copy. I
would say, though, that that
report used to live online, and
our team was having a hard time
finding it online. So just a
request to the King County
family to try to get that
report back up in the
appropriate place, because it
does appear that that link has
been taken down. So thank you
to Councilmember Lewis for
again mentioning that sending
the email around and for our
team for printing that out and
helping to make sure everybody
had a copy in hand.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Mosqueda Clark,
did we have any council members
besides Councilmember Balducci
or Councilmember Perry who
missed votes.
Other than Councilmember
Balducci and Perry? No. All
right.
Thank you. Um. Thank you,
colleagues, we
re going to end
the meeting. If there
s no
further business to come before