King County government and the Oakland A's baseball team -- that's a comparison we hadn't heard before.

But in his state of the county speech Monday, King County Executive Dow Constantine made that connection, saying he had just seen Moneyball, the Oscar-nominated movie that shows how the chronically under-funded A's were able to compete with financial behemoths like the New York Yankees by throwing out a lot of baseball conventional wisdom and innovating, finding ways to squeeze the most of every buck.

"The county used to be a little like the Yankees," Constantine said to a packed house at Bellevue City Hall. "Its first response to a problem was to throw money at it."

But now the county is more like the smart and scrappy A's of the previous decade, Constantine said. "Finding inefficiencies in the established system, seeking out the highest performance at the lowest-possible cost. Getting the best value."

Such a comparison, of course, puts Constantine in the role of Brad Pitt, who played A's General Manager Billy Beane in the movie. "Which was primarily my point," Constantine joked after his speech.

And it means Deputy Executive Fred Jarrett has the part played by nebbishy Jonah Hill who portrayed Harvard-educated, statistics-geek Paul DePodesta. "My wife would appreciate that," Jarrett deadpanned.

In a more serious vein, Constantine said the county probably never will have the money it came to expect in the old days -- so it would have to get by with less. He detailed some of the ways the county has been more efficient: reaching a new regional jail agreement with the city of Seattle; dramatically reducing the percentage of animals euthanized by the county; replacing the old political formula that governed bus service with one based more on data and productive routes.

It's not all rosy at King County, though. Constantine acknowledged that state budget cuts could be harmful to some in King County -- which has a larger population than 14 U.S. states -- particularly those who rely on social services and public health. But the county is trying to be more efficient with its own spending, he said, controlling what it can, in hopes that if it has to ask for a tax increase at some point, it will have demonstrated to voters prudent management.

State Auditor Brian Sonntag also released a report last week criticizing the county for not fully following federal rules in spending $10 million in grants. The "overarching problem," according to Sonntag's spokesperson Mindy Chambers, was that the county was tardy in getting information to auditors, which meant the federally mandated audit was late.

Auditors found no misappropriation or diversion of funds, Chambers noted, and she said auditors were encouraged by Jarrett's concern and vow to fix any problems. "That's really important and we have every reason to believe they are on a good path to get things done in time next year."

Jarrett said Monday he didn't think the auditors findings themselves were serious. The problem, he said, was the defensiveness of some county employees in responding to auditors. "We're not going to let that happen again," he said, and noted he gave auditors his cell phone number.