Today the Seattle City Auditor published a final set of studies on the Sweetened Beverage Tax, looking at outcomes 24 months after the tax was first imposed. According to one report, nearly all of the tax was passed through to consumers — though less so at locations near the border …
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OIG plan for assuming monitoring responsibilities
Under the new proposed consent decree, OIG would take over from the court-appointed police monitor responsibilities for ongoing monitoring of SPD’s progress in meeting and maintaining compliance with the consent decree requirements. This week the OIG Director presented to the City Council the plan for how the department will take …
Continue readingSDOT bridge audit response progress report
Last week SDOT reported out on the progress it has made addressing ten recommendations made in a 2020 City Auditor report on Seattle’s bridges. According to SDOT, it has implemented one of the ten recommendations, and the other nine are pending with a complete response by the end of 2023.
Continue readingAuditor review of Seattle’s “Secure Scheduling” ordinance
The Seattle City Auditor’s office has release a final report on employers’ implementation of the city’s “secure scheduling” ordinance. The Auditor commissioned a research group at the University of Chicago to conduct the study. I hope you found this article valuable. If you did, please take a moment to make …
Continue readingKing County auditor report: county agencies stiffing their employees for benefit payments
A new report from the King County Auditor finds that county agencies repeatedly did not make payments in lieu of benefits that were owed to employees. From the executive summary: King County agencies owe payments in lieu of benefits to temporary employees who meet certain criteria, but agencies did not …
Continue readingState auditor review of how Seattle contracted for homeless services
Yesterday the Washington State Auditor’s office released a performance audit of contracted homeless services for four jurisdictions: the City of Seattle, the City of Spokane, Snohomish County, and Yakima County. The report make several pointed critiques of Seattle’s processes for contracting with and managing the performance of homeless service providers, …
Continue readingSeattle Human Services Department “financial improvement plan”
For several years Seattle’s Human Services Department, which has one of the largest budgets in the city’s government, has had chronic issues with financial management. Last year the department began a “Financial Improvement PLan to address these issues. Below are the slides due to be presented by HSD to the …
Continue readingKing County Auditor review of Sheriff’s Office racial disparities
This week the King County Auditor released a report detailing its analysis of racial disparities within the practices and operations within the King county Sheriff’s Office. The top-level finding of the study is that the King County Sheriff’s Office does not collect and retain the kind of data that would …
Continue readingSeattle City Auditor Status Report on Implementation of Recommendations
The Seattle City Auditor issues a report approximately annually (it’s been fourteen months since the last status report) on the status of city departments’ implementation of its recommendations from audit reports that it has issued over the past few years. This year, the report is shorter, with a link to …
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