Auditors throw up hands at how poorly King County tracks spending

King County's tracking of its capital projects is so poor, the state terminated an audit because the county couldn't provide full and timely access to files, the State Auditor's Office said in a report today.

The report said none of eight county departments or divisions was able to produce all of the requested records during a three-month period last year.

"In response to our request, the audit team received dozens of spreadsheets that were compiled manually and that contained incomplete and conflicting information," the audit team wrote in a 104-page report.

The county lacks a comprehensive information system, adequate performance measures and oversight of construction projects, the auditors concluded.

They recommended a countywide tracking system, but the county disagreed in a written response, saying other alternatives should be explored before adopting "a 'one-size-fits-all' approach." The county response also said it didn't provide some requested information because of "misunderstandings" about what the auditors were asking for.

Among the auditors' findings:

• The Facilities Management Division told auditors it took a team of six to eight people to compile information from hard-copy records.

• In the Roads Division, project managers filed projects under any names they wanted — in some cases the names of science-fiction characters — and sometimes kept files on computer drives not accessible to auditors or supervisors.

• The Procurement and Contracting Services Section couldn't find hard copies on bidding and architectural engineering on the Novelty Hill Road improvement project.

• A Water and Land Resources Division manager told auditors, "There is no systematized or automated process for monitoring or controlling project expenditures to keep them within their authorized budgets."

The auditors also found problems with cash management in Metro Transit, the jail's Work Education Release Program and the Recorder's Office; and other problems in other agencies. The report praised the county's oversight of the $1.8 billion Brightwater sewage-treatment plant project.

Metropolitan King County Councilmembers Reagan Dunn of Maple Valley and Bob Ferguson of Seattle introduced a motion today intended to strengthen council oversight of construction projects and reinstate the Executive Audit Committee which had fallen into disuse.

Ferguson called the county's inability to provide full information to the auditors "frustrating and unacceptable. ... When an auditor comes in to audit your books, the most basic requirement one has is to provide adequate information to support that work. We flunked that test."

Councilmember Larry Phillips asked County Executive Kurt Triplett to develop a comprehensive plan within 60 days for improving business practices and internal controls.

Phillips, in a news release, cited auditors' findings of "checks laying unprocessed in a drawer, transit cash fares stacked in two-foot-high piles left unsecured on a table, and inadequate accounting for county assets such as pharmaceuticals and computer monitors."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com