Eight hundred thousand dollars to family members — and King County is only now asking whether the rules should’ve caught it. This is The Seattle Daily Fix — I’m Cassidy, with Devin — and today we’re unpacking what happens when procurement ethics are more suggestion than guardrail. Sure, reforms are great. But somebody already cashed the checks — that’s the part I care about. We’ll get into who knew what, and when the county started treating it like a problem versus when it actually became one — stay with us. Here’s David Gutman at The Seattle Times:
A Metropolitan King County Council member has proposed updates and reforms to the county’s ethics code after a Seattle Times investigation revealed a county manager oversaw payments to family members of more than $800,000.
The new legislation, from Councilmember Reagan Dunn, would broaden ethics rules to cover more potential conflicts of interest. It would also require conflicts to be resolved, not simply disclosed.
Credit where it’s due — the Seattle Times Watchdog team broke this one. Eight hundred thousand dollars in payments to a manager’s family members, and the county’s ethics rules apparently let it slide because disclosure was enough. No fix required, just file the paperwork. Disclosure. As in, “hey, I’m steering public money to my relatives — just so you know.” That was the safeguard? No wonder the DCHS budget blew up with zero accountability. This is what “trust the process” gets working-class people who depend on these services. Reagan Dunn’s proposal would make conflicts actually get resolved — not just logged. And the county’s also talking about a new inspector general office. The real question is whether that office has any teeth, or whether it’s just another checkbox. An inspector general sounds great until you remember King County’s been “considering” accountability fixes for years, while the same departments keep hemorrhaging money. Show me enforcement, not the org chart. We’ve put links to all of today’s stories in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can follow it there and read more.
That’s The Seattle Daily Fix for Friday, May 8th. Thanks for listening, and have a good weekend. This is a Lantern Podcast.