On his 100th day in office March 4, King County Executive Girmay Zahilay signed an Executive Order reorienting his government and emphasizing accountability and stronger management practices.
Coming on the heels of his requirement that King County employees work from the office at least three days a week — a mandate that was announced a year and a half ago but never fully enforced — Zahilay is charting a new course that meets the moment.
It’s been a rough few years for King County.
In 2024, KUOW discovered that a county staffer involved with the Regional Peacekeepers Collective secretly received $323,000 in payments from a nonprofit to which he directed public funds. The King County Ombuds fined the employee $7,100.
Last year, the King County Auditor discovered improper payments, including potential fraud, across multiple contracts issued by the Department of Community and Human Services.
Earlier this year, the King County Auditor issued a report noting that grants from King County Parks and Recreation had expanded significantly since 2017, but “its oversight strategy has not kept pace with grant volumes.”
Instead of making excuses or downplaying concerns, Zahilay created a new auditor position within the executive’s office to monitor, seek out and fix problems throughout the various departments before they metastasize into controversies.
“I wanted to make clear that with a new administration comes new expectations, a new opportunity for a reset,” said Zahilay in an interview.
“We’re instituting an internal audit director and a sub-cabinet that focuses on these issues so that we are proactively identifying risks, proactively instituting best practices.”
The Executive Order also expands ethics and fraud prevention training for all county employees who manage contracts.
In addition, Zahilay directed all departments to identify cost savings and scrutinize current spending.
“We can no longer measure success based on how much money we’ve spent or how many programs we’ve launched. It is how much gun violence was avoided, how many people were housed, how many overdose deaths were reversed? And that is baked into the Executive Order,” he said.
To be sure, previous executives have also emphasized good management practices. Time will tell if Zahilay is able to establish a new culture of accountability and show concrete results before taxpayers are inevitably asked to dig deeper to fund big regional expenses.
So far, Zahilay is emphasizing all the right notes. To make real progress, King County’s 18,000 employees ought to follow his lead.
