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Annual Reports
In 2023, the Auditor’s Office made strides to improve public access to audit information. Our King County International Airport audit was the first audit initiated based on public input into our work program planning process, and it was also the first audit for which we translated key content into three additional languages — Khmer, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Another highlight of 2023 was when our talented team won a highly competitive Knighton Award for our audit Property Tax Exemptions: Stronger Systems Needed to Meet Demand, another topic of high interest to the community.
Our focus on accountability, transparency, and equity will continue in 2024, as we prepare letters to the County Council to highlight areas of risk identified through past audits and begin outreach to develop our 2025 work program.
Biennial Reports
As part of the 2018 revisions to the King County Charter, the Auditor produces biennial reports for three oversight areas: capital projects, law enforcement, and Metro Transit.
Capital Projects Oversight
The Capital Projects Oversight Program provides independent oversight of King County’s large capital construction efforts. The program promotes accountability and improved performance of capital projects and programs, with a focus on high-risk projects, and provides timely and useful information to Councilmembers and other county decision-makers. All program costs are funded through the Capital Improvement Program budget.
Law Enforcement
The King County Auditor’s Office performs independent oversight of county departments and offices for King County residents and policy-makers, improving the equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of county services through impactful audit recommendations. The King County Council established the Law Enforcement Audit Program within the Auditor’s Office in 2006 to specifically focus on oversight of the County’s criminal legal system. This biennial report addresses the Program’s work over the last two years.
Transit
Through our work with King County Metro Transit Department (Metro Transit), we continue to focus on ensuring county residents have access to equitable, efficient, and effective transit services. Because the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted bus operations, we temporarily shifted our work to help ensure Metro Transit could dedicate its resources toward responding. To continue to provide timely and useful analysis and recommendations during this period, we included Metro Transit in our audit of King County’s pandemic response, which covered topics including employee safety and controls over federal emergency funding, among others. In 2021, we resumed conducting direct engagement with Metro Transit following up on previous recommendations and auditing bus collision and injury prevention and capital project management.