King County can’t keep up with homelessness and crime, but it somehow found time to create an ICE flight hall monitor job.
King County hires a taxpayer-funded ICE flight monitor
King County has hired a full-time employee to monitor deportation flights at Boeing Field, following years of pressure from immigration activists to stop ICE flights altogether.
The position reportedly spends 40 hours a week monitoring flights, counting passengers and documenting activity. The county says the job covers other large passenger flights too, but the timing comes after the county twice tried—and failed in federal court—to block ICE flights from the airport.
Now, instead of shutting them down, King County is paying someone to watch them.
The county says the first five ICE flights in August carried 285 people through Boeing Field. Activist group La Resistencia, which pushed for greater monitoring, says it will continue conducting its own counts.
So now, thanks to the activists who control King County, taxpayers are paying for a full-time position whose primary function appears to be keeping tabs on federal officers after the courts already rejected the county’s attempts to stop the flights. Meanwhile, King County continues to struggle with homelessness, rampant property crime, and other public-safety concerns.
It’s quite a use of county resources when residents are still waiting for the government to address problems happening right outside their doors. Read more at Seattle Red.
Seattle’s LEAD Program Has Been Selling the Wrong Numbers for 11 Years
For years, Seattle’s LEAD program has touted claims that it reduced recidivism by 58%, felony charges by 39%, and increased employment odds by 46%.
A new Washington Policy Center analysis says those claims substantially overstate what the original research actually found.
The study’s findings were repeatedly mischaracterized by confusing odds with probability and relative changes with actual outcomes. The research itself showed little or no clear positive effect on those measures and had significant methodological and design limitations that prevent it from establishing causation.
Yet versions of these claims were repeated from 2015 through 2026, including recently in a Seattle City Council agenda packet supporting a LEAD expansion.
Eleven years of selling a program with numbers that don’t actually say what Seattle claims they say. Read the WPC’s full report here.
Washington’s Wildfire Bill Is Already Blazing Past $200 Million
Washington has already spent $207 million fighting 20 wildfires in just the past month, with more than 770,000 acres burned statewide this year—the third-highest total on record.
That comes after the Department of Natural Resources spent a record $304.8 million on wildfire suppression last fiscal year, nearly $18 million more than budgeted.
Democrats have controlled Olympia for years while Washington’s forests have accumulated hazardous fuels and wildfire costs have continued climbing. Yet the response remains largely the same: spend more money fighting increasingly destructive fires after they start.
DNR is already preparing to seek additional emergency funding, while the agency says Washington needs to “continue and deepen” its investments.
After years of Democrat control, taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions putting out fires while Olympia still hasn’t adequately addressed the forest-management policies that help determine how those fires burn.
Maybe after years of throwing money at wildfires after they erupt, Democrats might consider investing in proven preventative measures. Unfortunately, we aren’t holding our breath. Read more at the Washington State Standard.
Gross lack of accountability at Washington’s child welfare agency
A new state audit exposes a disturbing lack of accountability at Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families, finding the agency repeatedly failed to follow state laws and its own policies when investigating unlicensed child care providers, handling child abuse cases and distributing taxpayer-funded gift cards.
Auditors found DCYF missed required deadlines in multiple child care investigations, failed to publicly identify unlicensed providers in five cases, and lacked documentation showing required specialized interview training for two workers handling serious abuse allegations.
Then there’s the money. DCYF distributed nearly $2 million in gift cards, but auditors found serious control failures at four of five regional offices reviewed. At the Seattle MLK office, 73 gift cards were completely unaccounted for, while none of the four problem offices completed the required monthly inventories.
Perhaps most troubling: this isn’t DCYF’s first warning. A previous audit finding on gift-card management from 2022 was marked “not corrected.” The agency also still hasn’t fully corrected problems with its purchasing cards.
DCYF blames staffing shortages and says it needs more money for a new 17-person compliance unit. But Washington Democrats have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s office throughout this period, meaning accountability for state agencies ultimately rests with the people running Olympia.
After years of warnings and repeated failures, the response cannot simply be to give DCYF more money and hope for the best. Democrats have had the power to demand accountability. Instead, taxpayers are once again being asked to pay more for an agency that can’t even follow the rules already on the books. Read more at The Center Square.
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