Search Results for: performance audits

Speaking of Tim Eyman, the initiative he’s shilling for the 2005 season would implement performance audits, which might actually be a great idea, if the Legislature hadn’t already done so. (And if Tim hadn’t written his initiative so stupidly. As usual.)

WA State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s office has already put up a web page dedicated to explaining the new legislation, and allowing citizens to follow along with its progress. Sonntag promises to enable citizen input via the web page, but if you really want to get involved, they have posted an application form with which you can apply to join the Citizen Advisory Board yourself.

My suggestion to all you “waste, fraud, and abuse” righties out there is to put your money where your mouth is, and apply for the Board.

Congratulations to Rep. Mark Miloscia (D-Federal Way) for finally, finally getting a performance audits bill through the Legislature, after years of trying. HB 1064 passed the House today by a 75 to 22 margin, after having passed the Senate 30 to 19 earlier in the month. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the bill into law.

(A curious note… the always luscious Sen. Pam Roach voted against the bill, while her son Dan voted for it. Hmmmm.)

Of course, professional initiative sponsor Tim Eyman is still pushing his bullshit performance audits initiative, I-900, but then… he wouldn’t be Tim if he didn’t. I imagine it’s kind of hard to feign outrage about the need for performance audits, when we already have them, but I suppose Tim will find a way.

Anyway… it’s a kind of boring topic I’ve written about on way too many occasions, so if you’re interested in my take on performance audits, you can find my previous blogs here.

On Wednesday, the state House overwhelmingly passed HB 1064, a bill authorizing (and funding) the state auditor to conduct independent, comprehensive performance audits. The bill is enthusiastically supported by State Auditor Brian Sonntag, whose office issued a document summarizing the bill, and a statement that includes the following endorsement:

We’re happy and highly supportive of the bill, particularly after being out front

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“My name is David Goldstein. I’m a citizen activist and a blogger, and if I’m going to sit at my computer criticizing the legislative process, I feel I have the obligation to come down to Olympia and engage in it.”

That’s how I opened my testimony today before the House State Government Operations & Accountability hearing on HB 1064, “Improving government performance and accountability” (Performance Audits). In case you’re wondering, I testified in favor of the bill.

I also attended the Senate Government Operations & Elections hearing, and curiously, Tim Eyman was nowhere to be seen at either… despite being so passionate about the issue, that he’s willing to spend $600,000 of other people’s money to get it on the ballot as an initiative. Instead, he just sat at home and sent out another fundraising email attacking the bill as a “cheap substitute.”

For my fellow lovers of fiction who also subscribe to Tim’s email list, let’s set the record straight on some of his comments:

I-900 allows true independence. All other proposals require the state auditor to beg and plead each year for funding FROM THE VERY PEOPLE HE IS GOING TO AUDIT.

Um… it’s not the Legislature that will be audited… it’s Executive branch departments and agencies.

And while it is true that HB 1064 does not have a dedicated funding source, other proposals do, such as SB 5083. If Tim bothered to attend the hearing, he could have suggested adding such a provision, although he might have chafed at SB 5083’s $2.5 million a year appropriation — a quarter that of Tim’s initiative. But then, what do you expect from the bill’s ultra-liberal sponsor: the Evergreen Freedom Foundation?

I-900 requires public exposure of the audit reports and ensures public involvement. … The audit proposals in Olympia keep the audit reports secret, hidden from the public, and released only to legislative leaders.

Yeah, that’s true… as long as your idea of a “secret report” is HB 1064’s requirement to post it to the Internet. Also secret I suppose, is the bill’s Citizen Oversight Board, that collaborates with the State Auditor on all audits.

I-900 holds all levels of government accountable. Under current law, the state auditor can conduct FINANCIAL AUDITS of state and local governments in Washington. … I-900 simply expands this existing authority so that the auditor can also do PERFORMANCE AUDITS of state and local governments.

First of all, Tim… STOP SHOUTING.

Second, State Auditor Brian Sonntag, to whom Tim wants to grant the independence to perform these audits, clearly stated his opinion about the initiative before both committees: “It is not the approach I prefer. I prefer a legislative and collaborative process.” Indeed, the idea of mandatory performance audits of all local agencies and accounts is so silly, that I actually provoked chuckles by mentioning the notion of auditing cemetery districts.

I should also note that while I-900 appropriates $10 million a year, the Auditor’s office estimates that it would actually cost $90 million per biennium, and take twelve years to ramp up his office to meet the initiative’s requirements.

And finally…

Democrats are falling all over themselves to get in front of I-900’s speeding train.

Eat me.

Performance audits represent a bipartisan issue that, in one form or another, has passed the House several years running, only to be blocked in the Senate by Republican Pam Roach (who by the way, showed up for the hearing an hour and fifteen minutes late.)

So Tim, don’t give me any shit about Democrats following your lead. Rep. Miloscia has been pushing performance audits for six years, and with 46 co-sponsors, HB 1064 is sure to sail through the House once the language is finalized. Sen. Kastama plans to fast-track a companion bill through his committee, and there is no doubt that the final version will come to the Senate floor for a vote.

There is certainly some institutional resistance from the governor’s office, state agencies, and even the Joint Legislative Legislative Audit and Review Committee. So it may yet take a little arm-twisting to ease a bill through the Senate.

If Eyman really cares about performance audits, instead of just grandstanding the issue for personal gain, he’ll join me in twisting a few Senators’ arms once the time comes. But that seems unlikely, considering that nobody pays him to lobby the Legislature. (At least, not that he’s reported to the PDC.)

HB 1064 enacts comprehensive, independent performance audits, and has broad bipartisan support. If Tim Eyman has an ounce of integrity in his body, he’ll join me in helping State Auditor Brian Sonntag get the bill he wants.

Speaking of performance audits, somebody should conduct one on the Seattle Times editorial board, who in the absence of competition from the Seattle P-I, seems all the more eager to just make stuff up as they go along.

The authority for performance audits was created by the people, through initiative. Legislators did not do it, and were never going to do it. Key legislators did not want to elevate Sonntag into a power that could affect their programs.

Yeah, but the problem is, the Legislature did pass performance audit legislation back in 2005, by a 75-22 margin in the House, 30-19 in the Senate, some three months before I-900 even qualified for the ballot.  And while it didn’t give the State Auditor the autocratic control and dedicated funding source of I-900, Brian Sonntag and his office enthusiastically supported the bill at the time, testifying on its behalf.

I know.  So did I.

Quibble if you want over the details of which legislation was more effective—one that gave the Auditor sole discretion over which agency gets audited, or one that has the priorities and agenda set by a Citizens Advisory Board—the Legislature did in fact give up JLARC’s control over performance audits, and it did so by an overwhelming margin.

Furthermore, the very notion that performance audits would never take place without a dedicated funding source and an all powerful Auditor, totally ignores reality.  Indeed, 23 performance audits were conducted at WSDOT alone, between 1991 and I-900’s passage in 2005.  23!

Performance Audits at WSDOT: Inventory (as of April 2005)

• Washington State Ferries (WSF) Vessel Construction Audit, Booz Allen, 1991
• Environmental Organization Study, WSDOT, Transportation Commission, 1994
• Environmental Cost Savings and Permit Coordination Study, Legislative Transportation Committee, 1994
• Procurement Audit WSF, Federal Audit, 1995
• Department of Transportation Highways and Rail Programs Performance Audit, Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC), 1998
• Department of Transportation Ferry System Performance Audit, JLARC, 1998
• Public Private Initiatives Audit, Transportation Commission, 1999
• WSF Risk Assessment, Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation 1999
• Standards Review Team Report to Governor Locke, Transportation Commission, 2000
• Triennial Review WSF, Federal Audit, 2000
• Performance Audit of the Washington State Ferry System Capital Program, Office of Financial Management, 2001
• Washington State Legislature’s Joint Task Force on Ferries, 2001
• Washington State Ferry System Capital Program, OFM-Talbot, 2002
• WSDOT Aviation Division Study, JLARC, August, 2002
• Statewide Agency Capital Construction Practices (limited scope performance audit), OFM – KPMG, January, 2003
• Statewide Agency Performance Assessment, OFM-KPMG, January, 2003
• Personal Services and Purchased Services Contracting, (limited scope performance audit), OFM, January, 2003
• Department of Transportation Highways and Ferries Programs Performance Measure Review , TPAB-Dye Management Inc (November 2004)
• Department of Transportation Capital Project Management Pre-audit, TPAB-JLARC: Gannet-Fleming (January 2005)
• Environmental Permitting for Transportation Projects Pre-audit, TPAB-JLARC (January 2005)
• Business Process Review of Environmental Permitting for Transportation Projects, TPAB-JLARC; currently underway, April 2005
• Business Process Review of Accountability Oversight Mechanisms and Project Reporting for WSDOT TPAB-JLARC, April 2005
• Review of Port Angeles Graving Dock Project TPAB-JLARC; planned as of April 2005

And those are just the pre-900 performance audits at a single state agency; that list doesn’t include the regular (but much less sexy) financial audits that have always been the primary responsibility of the State Auditor’s Office.  Which raises another serious question about the Times editorial and the media coverage of this issue in general:  if the Times actually understands the difference between a “performance audit” and a “financial audit,” they don’t seem willing to share that information with their readers.

They may both have the word “audit” in their name, but performance and financial audits are not the same thing.  The latter is an objective endeavor conducted according to commonly accepted accounting standards.  If a financial audit finds that there is $90 million missing on the books, somebody surely needs to be fired and/or prosecuted.

But a performance audit is a much more subjective, complex and less exact affair that may include the following elements:

(i) Identification of programs and services that can be eliminated, reduced, consolidated, or enhanced;

(ii) Identification of funding sources to the state agency, to programs, and to services that can be eliminated, reduced, consolidated, or enhanced;

(iii) Analysis of gaps and overlaps in programs and services and recommendations for improving, dropping, blending, or separating functions to correct gaps or overlaps;

(iv) Analysis and recommendations for pooling information technology systems used within the state agency, and evaluation of information processing and telecommunications policy, organization, and management;

(v) Analysis of the roles and functions of the state agency, its programs, and its services and their compliance with statutory authority and recommendations for eliminating or changing those roles and functions and ensuring compliance with statutory authority;

(vi) Recommendations for eliminating or changing statutes, rules, and policy directives as may be necessary to ensure that the agency carry out reasonably and properly those functions vested in the agency by statute;

(vii) Verification of the reliability and validity of agency performance data, self-assessments, and performance measurement systems as required under RCW 43.88.090;

(viii) Identification of potential cost savings in the state agency, its programs, and its services;

(ix) Identification and recognition of best practices;

(x) Evaluation of planning, budgeting, and program evaluation policies and practices;

(xi) Evaluation of personnel systems operation and management;

(xii) Evaluation of state purchasing operations and management policies and practices; and

(xiii) Evaluation of organizational structure and staffing levels, particularly in terms of the ratio of managers and supervisors to nonmanagement personnel.

A thorough financial audit requires an accountant, but to achieve its intended goal a performance audit requires professionals with some degree of familiarity and expertise in the functions being audited (that’s why, lacking such broad expertise in house, Sonntag contracts out performance audits to private firms), and perhaps most importantly, the full cooperation of the agency being audited.

Did a performance audit really uncover $90 million in wasteful spending at the Port of Seattle?  Maybe. Hell, knowing the way the Port had been run, the auditors likely even missed a lot of potential savings.  But these findings aren’t worth much more than a bullet point in a slanted editorial if the target agency perceives the audit as an adversarial process, and thus resists both the auditors and their recommendations.

Oh… and as for this hypocritical piece of tired, old rhetoric:

Under cover of recession, they have now erased the people’s vote on Initiative 900 and hobbled the auditor’s office.

The Times has no problem defunding the teachers pay and class size initiatives, and has advocated in favor of gutting I-937’s overwhelmingly popular renewable energy requirements.  But “the people’s vote on Initiative 900” should somehow be inviolable?  Gimme a fucking break.

I don’t see the Times shedding even crocodile tears for the tens of thousands of Washingtonians who will be denied basic health care under the recently passed draconian budget, or for the thousands of students who now won’t find a slot in our state colleges and universities.  But force Sonntag to put off for a couple years yet another audit of Sound Transit, and we get an editorial crying for Gov. Gregoire to whip out her veto pen.

Personally, I’m a big supporter of performance audits.  I blogged extensively on the subject in 2005, and slogged down to Olympia to testify on their behalf.  (I also blogged and testified on behalf of performance audits for tax exemptions, a good government measure the Times couldn’t give a shit about.)  But unlike the Times, I understand their limits.

Budgets are all about priorities.  And if Sonntag really believes that investing in education or preventative health care produces less of a long term financial return to the state than investing in performance audits, he should save up his pennies and conduct the next performance audit on himself.

While we’re somewhat on the subject, and in the interest of full disclosure, I thought I’d let it be known that I made a public records request this morning regarding the handful of performance audits that Ted Van Dyk seems so jazzed about:

Later this month, state Auditor Brian Sonntag will release such audits of the Washington State Department of Transportation and Sound Transit and, shortly thereafter, of the Port of Seattle. All three audits will precede fall elections and could have important impacts on voter decisions about the Sound Transit-RTID regional transportation package and Port of Seattle Commission races.

The more I re-read that paragraph the more suspicious I got, especially in light of recent rumors and hints that the anti-transit crowd has been leaked information regarding the upcoming reports. Van Dyk seems to think it a great thing that performance audits be timed for release just weeks before crucial votes regarding these agencies, but I can’t help suspect it an overtly political maneuver. It is also potentially the death knell for performance audits as a useful tool in Washington state.

Performance audits are not comparable to financial audits in either scope or purpose. You don’t just bring in a third party to examine the books in search of waste, fraud or abuse, but rather, you observe and analyze the performance of an agency and its procedures for the purpose of recommending changes that could lead to greater efficiencies. While in a worst case scenario a performance audit could conclude that an agency does not fulfill its mission at all, it is mostly meant as a productivity tool, and as such requires the full cooperation of the management and staff being audited if it is to be effective. If instead, performance audits are used as a means to politically punish and embarrass an agency — including, say, influencing elections — then future audits on other agencies will never gain the inside trust and cooperation necessary to conduct them.

Yes, voters deserve to know how well Sound Transit and WSDOT are spending our money before we vote them more of it, but if these audits are perceived to be politically motivated hatchet jobs, their reports won’t be worth the paper they’re written on. And if officials within the auditor’s office or the outside contractors have been improperly communicating with opponents of the Roads & Transit measure, soliciting their input and leaking results, then I can’t see how these so-called “performance audits” can be understood to be genuine performance audits at all, let alone impartial and unbiased.

My hope is that Brian Sonntag’s office has been scrupulous in overseeing these audits and in hiring contractors who are equally scrupulous and unbiased, but the timing of these audits and their reports does give me pause. I’m generally loathe to investigate my sneaking suspicions at taxpayer expense, but I didn’t really see any other choice. My fingers are crossed that my public records request turns up nothing of interest.

For me, I’m guessing that the biggest news story in tomorrow’s papers will be the lack thereof. Specifically, the relative absence of Tim Eyman from the headlines.

In an election night effort to draw attention away from his dismal failure with Initiative 892, Tim announced that he would be filing a new “performance audits” initiative on Nov. 9 (today). In the past, such events have drawn TV cameras and a gaggle of reporters.

This time… not so much.

In fact, unless it’s a real s-l-o-w news day, Tim might not make the morning newspapers at all.

There are a couple of reasons for the media’s sudden lack of interest in all things Timmy. First, this is definitely a none-event. You can’t file an “Initiative to the People” until January, so any trip to the Secretary of State’s office would be an obvious hoax.

Second… well… Tim is increasingly… irrelevant.

In the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of political news coverage, Tim hasn’t really done much lately.

Two years in a row, his “sure-fire”, “I’ve never seen supporters so excited” initiatives have failed to even qualify for the ballot. And while the million dollars of gambling industry money behind I-892 firmly established Tim as a professional initiative sponsor, its embarrassing showing at the polls only further eroded his reputation as a successful one.

With over sixty initiatives filed every year, only the best financed or truly outrageous initiatives manage to garner much news coverage — and Tim’s “performance audits” initiative promises to be neither. Oh Tim’s political circus will continue to get more than its fair share of headlines, but he’s gradually becoming more of a side-show freak than a big top performer.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not ready to write Tim’s political obituary. But I’m looking forward to an Eyman-free 2005 November election.

This morning as I was looking at The Seattle Times’ editorials, hoping for something to write about when I came across this editorial on the special session. It’s so Seattle Times, that you know the jokes I’d have made. They’d go like this:

• Stop obsessing about process over results, assholes
• You can’t complain about what the legislature cut if you don’t propose other cuts, or more taxes, assholes
• That’s not really a fair characterization of Inslee’s vetoes, assholes

Etc.

But what I want to focus on here is much more specific:

This time, the gimmicks included taking $227 million over coming years from a fund that pays for municipal bridges and sewer projects. It also wrongly wiped away $10 million to pay for performance audits of government agencies. Taxpayers want more efficiency, not a neutered watchdog.

That’s not how neutering works. Seriously, unless you’re breeding a dog, get it neutered. Here’s what the Humane Society has to say if you’re interested:

Myth: Neutering will take away the “guard dog” instincts.
Not true: Neutering a dog does not reduce its ability as a guard dog or watch dog. He will still be as protective of his territory as he was before the surgery.

So, what is it that a neutered watchdog would actually mean about performance audits? They’ll be fine, but the performance audits won’t have kids? They’ll hump fewer legs? They’ll be less likely to run away looking for sex? I mean I know metaphors are often imperfect, but the fuck are we even talking about?

And this is a dangerous myth to spread. We don’t need more unwanted puppies out and about. And as the Humane Society post I linked to earlier mentioned, not neutering a pet can make them go free-roaming. So dogs are more likely to get lost or get hit by a car. This throw away line is so bad, it may be the second worst thing someone at The Seattle Times has ever done for dogs.

The Seattle Times editorial board has just declared the entire Seattle City Council, Mayor Ed Murray, his five immediate predecessors, and the more than 70 civic organizations that have endorsed Proposition 1, to be a bunch of dirty stinking liars:

PROPONENTS of Proposition 1 are misleading voters when they claim approval of a Seattle Park District on the Aug. 5 ballot is the only way to save city parks. The measure represents a significant change in governance and a tax increase.

Omigod… pot, meet kettle! As I’ve written before, there’s absolutely no governance change. The mayor still proposes the parks budget, the city council still amends and approves it, and the city Parks Department still administers the funds. There is a tax increase, I’ll give the editors that. But that’s the whole fucking point: more (and more stable) money for parks!

Former Superintendent Ken Bounds recently told KUOW’s The Record, “If this fails, there is no funding.”

Once again the Seattle Times is banking on its readers being even lazier than its editorial writers. But if you actually bother to listen to the entire 14-minute interview, you’ll find that the editors’ seven-word summary of Bounds’ comments were taken entirely out of context:

“This is really about the future of the parks, and what we are going to do to renew our commitment. You’re not voting for a park district or a levy, you’re voting for a park district which has funding for the parks. If this fails, there is no funding.  So this is about voting for parks or saying ‘Oh, maybe some day in the future something else will happen.’ That’s not good enough for the citizens, and that’s not good enough for the parks system.”

So reading that quote in context, tell me, who’s really misleading voters here, Ken Bounds or the Seattle Times?

Furthermore, if you want to talk about misleading, in the very same interview Prop 1 opponent Don Harper resorts to his campaign’s usual bullshit scare tactics again, warning that a Park District could spend its money on whatever it wants. “Are we doing this because we want to build a $300 million waterfront park?” Harper asks KUOW listeners. “Are we going to build a new basketball arena?” Before the Seattle Times‘ own editorial board, opponents even warned that a Park District might build an airstrip atop Cal Anderson Park! Yet I don’t see the editors castigating Harper for attempting to mislead voters.

This all-or-nothing approach is troublesome because an alternate funding measure could indeed make the ballot as early as next February.

You know, so the paper would have an opportunity to torpedo the levy in a low-turnout special election, by aggressively endorsing against it the way it opposed the previous two parks levies.

If voters approve Proposition 1, new taxes would not even be collected until 2016. According to the city’s proposed six-year spending plan, the Parks and Recreation Department would get through the next year by borrowing about $10 million.

Um, what is it that the editors don’t get about the word “borrowing.” That $10 million would ultimately be paid back to the city’s general fund. But if Prop 1 fails, there’s no Park District to borrow that money, and there’s no new revenue available to pay it back. So it’s not like that $10 million is available for parks win or lose without cutting $10 million from some other crucial city service.

After that, the Seattle Park District — headed by City Council members — would have the authority to tax up to 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed value on property owners without voter input, a massive increase from the expiring levy of about 19 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. Council members say they will only collect 33 cents per $1,000 value initially.

Council members don’t just “say”—they passed a goddamn ordinance! Thirty-three cents per $1,000 value per year, through the first six years, a significant but not “massive” increase. That’s what the council passed, and that’s what the mayor signed into law. Or are the editors accusing Mayor Murray and the city council of being a bunch of dirty stinking liars?

Investment is important.

We just don’t want to pay for it.

Leaky community center roofs and dirty pools must get fixed, but not enough of Proposition 1 funds — only about 58 percent — would be spent on repairing a maintenance backlog that has ballooned to nearly $270 million. Instead of taking care of current assets, about a quarter of the new park district’s first-year revenue would be spent on expansion and development.

Really, Seattle Times? Back in 2000, when you opposed that year’s parks levy, you complained that elected officials “should pare it down, take out maintenance dollars, use tax revenues in flush times for some land acquisition.” Could you actually be more transparently hypocritical? But, you know, thanks for illustrating one of the big problems with relying on parks levies to fund our parks: they tend to be geared toward appealing to voters rather than the unsexy day to day business of routine maintenance. That’s how we accumulated this $270 million maintenance backlog in the first place.

(Also, not that the editors care about facts, but their figures aren’t exactly true. Much of that so-called “expansion and development” money is spent developing 14 land-banked sites acquired through previous parks levies, as well as restoring previously cut services at parks and community centers.)

Before attempting to replace a parks levy that voters approve every few years with a vastly different funding mechanism that gives the City Council control over a new fund worth tens of millions, the parks system should first undergo an independent, comprehensive audit. Such a review has never been done before, but it would help prioritize projects and tell voters exactly how their money is being spent.

As I’ve previously explained, that’s just not true—the parks department is subject to routine financial and accountability audits, not to mention the supervision of voters, who easily approved parks levies in 2000 and 2008 (again, over the Seattle Times’ strenuous objections). Further, the accompanying ordinance includes new money for more extensive performance audits—money that won’t exist if Prop 1 doesn’t pass. Plus, the ordinance calls for a citizens advisory committee to help shape spending priorities for the next six-year budget. So there’s arguably more accountability with the park district than there is without.

Voters should remember that once a district is formed and the council takes the reins, it can only be dissolved by its members — a highly unlikely scenario.

Because as its elected members just proved with their remarkably swift action on a historic $15 minimum wage, they are totally unresponsive to popular pressure from voters, or something.

Seattle voters are accustomed to having a robust voice on how their dollars are spent. They should not be bamboozled into thinking Proposition 1 is the sole solution for fixing parks.

Again, the editors are accusing six mayors, nine city council members, and more than 70 civic organizations of being bamboozlers. Think of it as the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” school of editorial writing.

But more to the point, yes Prop 1 is the only reasonable, stable, longterm solution to fixing our parks, because it is our only opportunity to provide an adequate and stable longterm funding source within the context of our I-747-constrained budgets.

One of the myths of the anti-Park District campaign is that we are somehow taking away from voters their historic role in directly managing parks: “Levies have been working well for us for decades,” Harper told KUOW listeners. But that’s not true. Throughout most of Seattle’s history we’ve primarily paid for parks out of our general fund. Indeed, we’ve only recently grown reliant on parks levies thanks to I-747’s absurd 1 percent cap on regular levy growth, which has sapped hundreds of millions of dollars from city coffers over the past decade—as much as $186 million in 2015 alone!

And so the city has finally turned to the Metropolitan Park District’s untapped taxing authority—an authority granted to Seattle a century ago, and one currently used by 16 other Washington municipalities without the atrocities of which opponents fabulously warn—simply to restore some of the regular levy taxing authority eroded away by I-747. In practice, it is little more than an accounting maneuver that allows the council to pass through this unused taxing authority for the benefit of city parks. Nothing more.

Yes, if Prop 1 fails, the city could eventually go back to voters with another parks levy. And like previous parks levies it would likely be loaded with goodies to appeal to the affluent neighborhoods filled with the affluent voters who reliably vote, rather than the unsexy deferred maintenance spending that always seems to be deferred. And like previous parks levies, it would consume precious levy capacity needed for other crucial services like universal preschool, roads, and transit. But what a parks levy can never provide is the adequate and stable funding source necessary to give Seattle the sort of parks, recreation, and community center system it wants and deserves.

Don’t let the Seattle Times mislead you. Vote “Yes” on Prop 1.

The Seattle Times editorial board (many of whom’s members don’t actually live in Seattle) weighs in on Proposition 1, which would create a Seattle Park District to manage and fund the city’s parks and recreation facilities.

SEATTLE loves its parks, and should have access to beautiful, safe and well-maintained urban green spaces.

Yes we do!

But in the name of good parks, the Seattle City Council is asking voters to give them a blank check, with increased power and weaker oversight.

We just don’t want to pay for them!

Citizens should reject Proposition 1, the Seattle Park District measure. This is not merely a replacement for the existing parks levy, which citizens have generously passed every six years. (Currently, property owners pay about 20 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value per year — or about $88 on a home valued at $440,000.)

It isn’t? Then I suppose in the very next sentence you are going to effectively describe exactly what Proposition 1 is:

As pro-parks community activist Gail Chiarello so effectively describes Proposition 1: “It’s pretending to be a Bambi, when it’s really a Godzilla.”

Um, what? I’m pretty sure that’s a non sequitur.

With the support of Mayor Ed Murray, Proposition 1 proposes a new, permanent taxing authority controlled by the City Council. Collections in 2016 would start at a total of 33 cents per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value (about $145 on a home worth $440,000), but the council could more than double that amount to 75 cents per $1,000, or $330 per year — without ever having to check with voters.

That’s not entirely true. Once the initial levy rate is set, the parks district would be subject to the same absurd one percent annual cap on regular levy revenue growth that Tim Eyman’s Initiative 747 imposes on all taxing districts. It is unclear to me whether the Parks District would be born with banked levy capacity up to the maximum revenue that could have been raised under the 75 cent per $1,000 statutory cap at the time of the initial levy, but even if so, that banked capacity would not grow with property valuations. In fact, since property values generally appreciate at a rate much faster than 1 percent a year, the actual maximum parks district levy rate per mille will inevitably decrease over time without a voter-approved lid lift.

Either the editors are too stupid to understand that, or they are engaging in dishonest scaremongering, pure and simple.

Under state law, this district cannot be dissolved by a public vote. Neither would citizens be able to file initiatives against decisions they disagree with.

Which is true. But citizens already can’t file initiatives against parks decisions now! The mayor proposes and the council amends and adopts parks appropriations through the annual budget process. City appropriations are not subject to initiative or referendum. How the parks department subsequently goes about spending its appropriations is a purely administrative function. Administrative actions are also not subject to initiative or referendum.

Again, either the editors don’t understand the law, or they’re hoping you don’t.

Though a 15-member citizens’ committee would ostensibly provide oversight, the real control is with the City Council. The parks district essentially creates a shadow city government, run by the same Seattle City Council with the same borders as the City of Seattle, but with vast new authority to levy up to about $89 million in new annual taxes on the same Seattle taxpayers.

How is it a “shadow city government” if it is composed entirely of the actual city government? Its meetings and records are open to the public. Its members are directly elected by voters. What is shadowy about that.

In fact, if you read the interlocal agreement that is part of the formation of the Parks District, nothing at all changes about the way decisions are actually made. The city will continue to own the parks. The mayor will continue to propose parks budgets. The council will continue to amend and approve parks budgets (before passing it on to itself in the guise of the Parks District for a pro forma vote). And the city’s parks department will continue to operate the parks on behalf of the district. Other than adding a citizens oversight committee, the only thing that substantively changes is the taxing authority. Nothing else.

There are not enough safeguards to stop the council from diverting general funds to other causes, such as sports arenas.

No safeguards except, you know, the ballot, the same safeguard that already stops the council from diverting funds to unpopular causes. These are elected officials. They answer to voters. That’s the safeguard: democracy.

(Also, “sports arenas?” Really? Now they’re just making shit up. In editorial board interviews and other forums, Parks District opponents have gone as far as to raise the specter that a Parks District could build an airstrip at Cal Anderson Park! That’s how stupid these sort of paranoid fantasies are.)

Proponents promise yearly department audits, but only after the measure becomes law.

Because you can’t audit something that doesn’t exist. Duh-uh.

Why wait? The city should conduct a robust, independent performance and financial audit before even attempting to ask voters to trust them and sign a blank check.

The office of the Washington State Auditor conducts annual financial and accountability audits of the city—including the Parks Department—the results of which are all available online. There are no outstanding negative findings regarding parks operations. As for a performance audit, it couldn’t hurt; but neither have the state’s performance audits proven to help all that much either.

Citizens deserve to know how funds have been used so far, and how the city might invest limited parks revenue more wisely.

See, this is really the heart of the disagreement here. The editors believe that parks revenue should be limited, whereas Mayor Murray and the council disagree. All their talk about accountability is bullshit. What they are really arguing for is more austerity.

• According to The Trust for Public Land, Seattle Parks and Recreation is ranked second in the nation for the number of employees per 10,000 residents among the nation’s 100 most populous cities. City spending on parks ranks fourth in the nation. Yet, it faces a daunting maintenance crisis that has left some buildings dilapidated, pools unusable, bathrooms dank and even allowed a broken pump at Green Lake to leak raw sewage.

Shorter Seattle Times: It’s all the fault of those greedy, lazy parks employees!

To be clear, the Parks Department has eliminated 142 positions since 2008, about 10 percent of its workforce. Further, Seattle Parks & Recreations is almost unique in the nation in that it encompasses community centers as well as parks, thus skewing our employee per resident and revenue per resident numbers upwards. Indeed, if you read the TPL report in its proper context (instead of cherry-picking data and deliberately presenting it out of context like the editors do), what you see is Seattle’s parks rankings slipping year over year compared to similar-size cities, do to our lack of investment.

So let’s be honest. One of the reasons the Seattle Times consistently opposes raising taxes (again, taxes many of its non-Seattle-resident editors will never pay) is because they view every funding crisis as an opportunity to punish unionized public employees. Not enough money to meet our paramount duty to amply fund public schools? Fire teachers, cut their pay, and break their unions! Sales tax revenue shortfall threatening 600,000 hours of Metro bus service? Fire bus drivers, cut their pay, and break their unions! Initiative 747’s ridiculous 1 percent cap on annual regular levy growth strangling the city’s ability to pay for parks and other public services? Fire workers, cut their pay, and break their unions!

• Despite campaign rhetoric calling on voters to invest in fixing parks, Proposition 1 would dedicate only about 58 percent, or $28 million, of revenue in the district’s first year toward chipping away at the city’s $270 million maintenance backlog. Eight percent, or $3 million, would pay for maintaining facilities. More than a quarter of the budget is slated for new programs and expansion.

That’s 58 percent toward addressing the maintenance backlog and 8 percent toward avoiding adding to it. Yes, a big chunk of the remainder goes to “expanding” programs… but only within the context of several years of program cuts. For example, we’re talking about restoring community center hours and routine park maintenance and service that had been cut during budgetary lean years. Over anything longer than a one-year time frame, that’s not an expansion.

As for new programs, the proposed budget would develop and maintain parks at 14 sites the city had previously acquired, but never had the funds to develop. Also a new program: performance monitoring! The editors oppose spending additional money on the exact sort of accountability they insist must be delivered before spending additional money! Imagine that.

Seattle needs to care for current assets before amassing more. It also ought to expand partnerships with nonprofits and private groups willing and ready to help sustain recreation programs.

Or, hell, why not just privatize?

Preserving parks is critical to quality of life and public health.

But paying for it is not.

The mayor and council members are understandably eager to create dedicated parks funding and free up room in limited levy capacity for other worthy programs, such as universal preschool. But they have failed to make a case for a Seattle Park District that gives elected officials so much additional, unfettered power to tax and spend.

Again, bullshit. The power isn’t unfettered and there’s zero loss of accountability. What the editors are really opposed to is “free[ing] up room in limited levy capacity for other worthy programs, such as universal preschool.” They want to drown city government in a bathtub.

By rejecting Proposition 1, voters send a strong message to city leadership: We love parks, but return with a levy or alternate measure that prioritizes park needs, holds officials more accountable and preserves citizen participation.

Actually, it would send the opposite and most obvious message: that we don’t love our parks. And they know that. But the anti-tax/anti-government/anti-Seattle editors just couldn’t give a shit.

Let’s be 100 percent clear: For all the over-the-top vilification, the proposed Seattle Municipal Parks District is little more than an accounting maneuver. For a hundred years, this latent taxing authority has been left untapped because a prosperous Seattle didn’t need it. But I-747’s ridiculous 1 percent cap (less than inflation let alone population-plus!) has left the city unable to grow revenues commensurate with its needs.

A parks district would provide a stable and adequate alternative revenue source while freeing up taxing capacity for other crucial services like universal pre-school. And it would leave the parks department just as accountable as it is now, if not more so.

What the Seattle Times is arguing for is what its editors always argue for: a slow and steady decline and erosion of the public sector. Tell them to go fuck themselves: Vote “yes.”

After its sales tax revenues fell off the edge of the Earth in the wake of the Great Recession, the plan to save Metro bus service from devastating cuts was pretty simple: we needed to move back to a stable, sufficient, and progressive Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET)—a tax on the value of your car. But to do this, we needed permission from Olympia, and legislators insisted that they would only grant the county that authority after implementing money saving reforms.

That was Plan A: reform Metro’s practices and levy an MVET.

And so limping along on a temporary $20 car tab fee and the last of its reserve funds, Metro did what it was told. Inefficient routes were cut or consolidated, bus drivers gave back cost-of-living increases, capital investments were canceled or deferred, fares were repeatedly raised, management was trimmed, and business practices were reformed. Metro was the target of multiple county, state, and independent performance audits, and subsequent reports have all lauded Metro for following through on money-saving recommendations. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been saved.

By all accounts Metro satisfied Olympia’s demands, and yet legislators have refused to live up to their end of the bargain. Not because Metro didn’t do enough—there’s been no suggestion of that—but because Republicans have been holding Metro’s MVET authority hostage in the service of forcing through a roads-heavy, anti-transit statewide transportation funding package. They need our votes to pass a gas tax increase their constituents don’t want, and so they won’t give us our local option MVET unless and until this statewide package is approved. Which, thanks to the dysfunction in the state senate, won’t happen anytime soon.

And so the county decided to use the less progressive taxing authority it already had. We moved on to Plan B: $60 car tabs and a tenth of a cent sales tax increase.

You can question the wisdom of pursuing Plan B during a low-turnout special election, but we’d pretty much run out of time. County voters yesterday rejected Proposition 1. So service cuts are now coming. It’s unavoidable.

But just because county voters as a whole refuse to tax themselves to pay for the services they need, doesn’t mean that pro-transit Seattle voters need to shoulder their full share of the cuts. That’s why it’s time to pursue Plan C: Seattle needs to buy back proposed cuts on in-city routes.

Under the reforms demanded by the state and others, Metro revised and rationalized the way it evaluates route performance, devising a strict formula to guide reducing or expanding service. Now that Prop 1 has failed (and the legislature seems no closer to passing a transportation package), Metro will soon finalize its list of service cuts, giving Seattle the opportunity to consider which service reductions it might want to defer. Each service cut would produce a corresponding cost savings. And that would be the cost to Seattle of preserving that service.

King County voters may have rejected a car tab fee, but dollars to donuts Seattle voters did not. A $20, $40, or even $60 city car tab to save city bus service probably stands a better chance at the polls, particularly if we schedule the vote for the higher-turnout 2014 general election.

Is it a sure thing? No. Is it the proper way to fund regional transit? Of course not—it doesn’t begin to address the tens of thousands of commuters crossing the city line (though we could always choose to subsidize some of those routes too). But remember, this isn’t Plan A. It isn’t even Plan B. It’s Plan Fucking C, for chrisakes. It’s what we reluctantly resort to only when the two better plans have already failed.

The only alternative is doing nothing. And given Seattle’s transportation needs, that’s not a plan Seattle can afford to pursue.

As I discussed a while ago, I’m sending out these questions to various Democratic candidates for contested races. I’m being somewhat more selective than I was with City Council where I just asked both people going on no matter how serious people might consider their candidacy. So no questions for Inslee’s or Cantwell’s Democratic primary opposition. Also, no Kastama since it’s Democrats only. I also didn’t do the 1st Congressional District since it’s being fairly well covered, and I didn’t do Superintendent of Public Instruction since it’s non-partisan and I may do some more of these for the general.

These will go Monday, so it’s your last chance to get something in. It’s the same question to every candidate, and it has to be fairly general, and since it’s email there won’t be follow up; if people give bullshit answers, you should feel encouraged to call bullshit in the comments.

Sec of State

1) How will you make sure elections are fair?

2) The last Democratic Secretary of State retired in 1964. What makes you think you’re going to finally flip that?

3) Sam Reed has been pushing to count the ballots that are received by election day (like in Oregon) rather than the ones postmarked by election day. Do you support or oppose this?

4) What legislation, if any, will you lobby for as Secretary of State?

Auditor

1) How will you use the performance audits as a tool to improve governance.

2) What in your background would make you a good auditor?

3) What legislation, if any, will you push as auditor?

36th and 46th Legislative Districts

1) The state’s paramount duty is education. Do you feel the state is living up to that duty? If not, what needs to happen to live up to it?

2) Washington State voters recently rejected an income tax. Most of the revenue that the legislature might be able to pass is quite regressive. Will you push for revenue, and if so, how will you make sure the burdens don’t fall on the poorest Washingtonians?

3) There is a good chance that the State Senate and/or the Governor’s Mansion will be controlled by Republicans after the next election, and certainly most legislators will be more conservative than people who would be elected in a Seattle district. Given that how will you get your agenda passed?

4) You’re running in a race with many Democrats who share similar positions. What separates you from the rest of the field?

5) Seattle and King County give more to the state than they get back. Part of this is reasonable things like the cost of providing education and social services in rural and suburban areas, but part of it is a lack of respect for Seattle and King County with the legislature that treats us as an ATM. How will you make sure your district gets its fair share of revenue without harming education or social services throughout the state?

…And they’re sent. I edited them a bit from when I first posted them.

I understand that the political hoopla over yesterday’s scathing King County performance audit report is inevitable, with executive candidates falling all over themselves calling for government reform, but honestly, I’m not really sure what to make of it.

I don’t doubt that there are problems in county government, that there are some bad managers and messed up or missing procedures that need to be replaced or fixed. That’s true of all large bureaucracies, public and private sector, and that’s why we do performance audits in the first place.

But quite frankly, I’ve lost faith in State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s office to conduct and report performance audits fairly, honestly, and most of all, efficaciously.

As I’ve explained before, a performance audit is not a financial audit, does not come close to adhering to the same sort of strict, unwavering standards, and is neither objective nor irrefutable, even when done well. The primary goal of a financial audit is to keep the books honest and accurate by providing an outside, independent verification of an organization’s financial records, and as such, it is mostly an objective exercise in math. The primary goal of a performance audit is to uncover inefficiencies in procedures and/or execution, and to make recommendations on how to improve an organization’s operations. Performance audits are, by their nature, more subjective and less definitive.

Indeed, for a performance audit to be maximally effective it requires the active cooperation and participation of those being audited; when conducted well, a performance audit is meant to be a collaborative process. Unfortunately, by repeatedly using performance audits as a punitive political weapon—an opportunity to very publicly attack and humiliate state and local government officials—Sonntag has transformed his audits into an adversarial process that puts targeted agencies on the defensive, and thus works against the stated goal of increasing government efficiency.

Oh, Sonntag’s office proudly trumpets the millions of dollars the auditors claim that taxpayers might save if their recommendations were implemented, but how much taxpayers have saved, well, we have no idea. No idea which recommendations officials grudgingly implement after Sonntag’s orchestrated media thrashing, and no idea how effective these recommendations actually are.

I’m not refuting all or even some of the findings in the KC performance audit report; auditors appear to have uncovered some egregious and/or stupid practices. But I put the emphasis on “appear” because honestly, I don’t know that the report can be taken at face value, especially coming from an Auditor with a history of targeting his resources at agencies and programs he dislikes, and who has already compromised his impartiality by endorsing Susan Hutchison, the only Republican in the executive race, and the candidate with the least experience at running anything… other than her mouth.

Like I said, I understand all the hoopla and headlines. Journalists are famously skeptical of government agencies and officials. As they should be. It’s their job, and they wouldn’t be doing it properly if they didn’t jump all over a report like this.

But what really bugs the hell out of me about the coverage of this and previous Sonntag orchestrated hatchet jobs, is the complete and utter unquestioning credulity in which our media approaches the least audited agency in the state… the Auditor’s office itself.

There’s a reason why babies cry… it works:

State Auditor Brian Sonntag won a scarce commodity today – more money for his budget.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and Sonntag reached a deal that’s expected to give Sonntag an additional $14 million for performance audits, giving him around $26 million to spend on the program over the next two years.

Tim Eyman and the editorial boards went ape-shit when Sonntag’s office was asked to absorb the same sort of cuts everybody else was enduring, and so of course the Governor caved. But even worse was the related veto…

The budget contained a provision that would have allowed Sonntag to recoup some of the money if he could prove his audits actually save the state money. Performance audits are aimed at finding efficiencies in state and local governments. Sonntag blasted the Legislature, saying the move would make him a bounty hunter.

“What a dumb idea and a stupid way to manage,” he said recently.

Get that?  The guy who argues that performance audits are so important that he’d rather deny kids health care and education than scale back his office for a couple years, thinks it is “dumb” to audit his own audits.  Let’s hear it for accountability.

The editors at the bankrupt Columbian wrote a staff editorial about performance audits. Which, you know, is fine and all but notice the conventional mindset and needless carping. Why, it’s downright shrill.

Back on Nov. 4, most voters did not send the governor back to Olympia just to be a good Democrat. They returned her to office to be a good governor, party notwithstanding. That kind of independence can be suicidal among legislators, whose intense caucus meetings are led by seniority, where favors are traded like a commodity and entire careers are determined by loyalty litmus tests.

Not so with the governor. Gregoire wandered off the extremists’ playground back in December when she proclaimed a no-tax-increases stance, and then produced a budget to back it up. Blatant heresy, in the minds of many Democrats, we’re sure.

If you thought that in the face of the national economic calamity we should at least pass a few taxes for education, you’re an “extremist.” The default “moderate” position, as always, is basically the Grover Norquist position–taxes are always bad, no matter the circumstances and no matter the need or possible benefit to society.

It’s not like there was a wide-spread debate in this state about whether taxes should be on the table. Sure, there were a few brave op-eds and such, but meaningful discussion about the broken nature of the tax system in this state occurred mainly in places other than newspapers. Funny how that was.

That certain newspapers get their taxes cut 40% and bitch and moan about “left wingers” tells you all you need to know. It’s all about tribalism, and the newspaper boards fancy themselves part of the respectable bidness guys and gals tribe, even if they have to compose their screeds in between appearances in bankruptcy court. Please patronize us some more, that’s a great technique for generating customer loyalty.