For a lot of voters, spending measures on the poll are judged by their relative deserves after which largely forgotten after the election.
A recent report by the King County Auditor’s Workplace on parks funding underscores the significance of monitoring levy and different public {dollars} to make sure they fulfill guarantees.
King County Parks’ grant applications expanded dramatically, rising from $3 million in 2017 to greater than $100 million anticipated from 2026 to 2031. Most comes from the $1.45 billion, six-year King County Parks Levy, which 72% of voters authorized final August. The Instances editorial board endorsed the measure.
The grants are meant to help investments in parks, trails, open areas, leisure services and programming. Based mostly on the previous couple of years, they ranged from $2,000 to greater than $2 million.
The audit, launched on Jan. 13, decided: “The Parks Division has not but translated high-level objectives offered within the Parks Levy into particular and measurable goals to information its grants program and doesn’t sufficiently monitor particular person grant outcomes, limiting its capability to successfully handle this system and rising the chance of misallocating assets.”
With out correct monitoring, the Parks Division “can not consider its efficiency, use associated insights to enhance operations, or use that data to exhibit how grant funds obtain levy objectives to the general public,” based on the report.
The audit checked out 288 grants awarded in 2023 and 2024. A deep dive into 25 grants included reviewing agreements, budgets, scopes of labor, invoices and supporting documentation.
Auditors didn’t examine the probabilities of fraud, and no proof of fraud, waste, or abuse have been noticed. “Nevertheless, due to gaps within the Parks Division’s monetary practices, we couldn’t affirm that each one grantee funds have been in step with program intent,” they wrote.
On a constructive be aware, Parks employed two supervisors for the grants crew, clarified some roles and obligations, renewed efforts to replace its insurance policies and procedures, and improved the templates that it supplies to grantees.
As a part of its report, the auditor drafted 11 suggestions. The county Division of Pure Assets and Parks concurred with all of them.
With so many spending measures on the poll and authorities increasing so quickly lately, there may be an “approve it and neglect it” mentality amongst a lot of the general public. Understandably so.
The auditor’s report — and former examinations of questionable spending by the county Department of Community and Human Services — underscores the necessity for fixed and thorough oversight to make sure {dollars} are well-spent and levies obtain measurable objectives.
That should be a high precedence for each new King County Government Girmay Zahilay and the whole King County Council.
