Rep. Ross Hunter outlined his plan for overhauling King County government this week.
“King County 2.0 – Hard Choices and A New Regionalism” calls for a renewed commitment to working together with other regional governments to solve problems and use taxpayer dollars more wisely.
“Fixing the budget in the long run is not about hiring freezes, short-term furloughs, or other temporary measures, though these are important in the short-run. Fixing the budget in the long run requires serious attention to underlying causes and having discipline about what we do as a region, not just as a stand-alone County government,” said Ross Hunter.
Hunter’s plan focuses on the core functions of county government: regional criminal justice, public health, transit and protecting the environment. It proposes immediate steps to get the county on a more solid financial footing including:
* Re-structure of executive staff. This includes identifying executive staff that are buried in operating departments. The goal must be to reduce the total size of this staff.
* Recover the Jail process – re-open negotiations with the suburban cities to see if there is a way we can create a regional jail system, instead of a collection of independently operated jails that will increase over all costs for everyone.
* Start negotiations with labor for the 2011 contracts, possibly re-opening existing contracts if it makes sense. These contracts need to line up with other regional governments and the private sector, including having employees pay part of the premium cost of their healthcare choices.
* Re-structure departments to more carefully reflect the local/regional services split and to be more reasonable to administer.
* Ensure that the new accounting system is on-track and making rational decisions. It’s crucial that we not waste the opportunity to re-engineer how the county works.
Hunter’s plan also includes new, stronger fiscal accountability, including to ensure completion of the accounting system replacement project, including rational contingency funding.
The plan is available for download at www.rosshunter.com
