Marc Dones’ announcement that he is resigning as the CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) is the latest sign of the organizational dysfunction that has permeated the two-year-old bureaucratic agency. Can anyone who has followed the saga that is the KCRHA really be surprised?
In just two years Mark Dones’ management style upset people across the political spectrum
Dones’ recent $11.8 billion five-year budget proposal for his agency shocked nearly everyone for it called for spending $882,704 per homeless individual (King County’s 2022 “Point in Time” count revealed there were 13,368 people “experiencing homelessness). Even the region’s big-government politicians cringed at this outrageous request from the unproven agency.
KCRHA’s inability to relieve the suffering of thousands of homeless individuals continues to disappoint homeless activists, non-profit homeless organizations, neighborhood groups, business organizations, and politicians. This has resulted in criticism from across the political spectrum, and begs the question, why is KCRHA so messed up?
There are several reasons contributing to the situation, including:
- Marc Dones, a self-employed “equity consultant”, was a disastrously unprepared pick to lead the organization after qualified candidates turned down the post.
- Policies focused on giving homeless individuals free or inexpensive housing, while ignoring their need for addiction and/or mental health treatment – the so-called “housing first” theory which has failed wherever it has been tried.
- Lack of an accepted set of responsibilities, as many people, including local officials, do not know what exactly KCRHA is responsible for accomplishing,
All of these problems (and many more) are due to the organizational structure of KCRHA. The current structure lacks public accountability and leads to major decisions being made by a small group of local
After massive cost overruns and numerous missed deadlines, Peter Rogoff was finally let go as Sound Transit CEO (yet he still received a nearly half million dollar severance package)
politicians who only spend a few hours a month working on KCRHA issues.
Not surprisingly, this organizational structure is very similar to the one which governs Sound Transit, anothe flailing public agency. Just consider the multiple construction delays across all rail lines and current cost estimates which are over $120 billion (and still rising) for a light rail system the voters in 2016 were told would cost only $54 billion. Or that voters were also promised that fare collection would pay 40% of the operational cost of the system, yet after the transit agency adopted liberal “equity” fare enforcement which allows people to ride the system for free, this figure is currently at 5%.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF SOUND TRANSIT AND KCRHA
Both regional organizations (Sound Transit is spread across parts of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, while KCRHA is just in King County) have a highly paid CEO who answers to a board primarily composed of local politicians, none of whom are actually elected to the board.
For Sound Transit this is its current Board of Directors:
King County Executive Dow Constantine (Chair)
University Place (Pierce) Councilmember Kent Keel (Vice Chair)
Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers (Vice Chair)
Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus
Kenmore City Councilmember David Baker
King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci
Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier
Everett (Snohomish) Mayor Cassie Franklin
Lynwood (Snohomish) Mayor Christine Frizzell
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell
Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez
King County Councilmember Joe McDermott
Washington State Secretary of Transportation Roger Millar
Renton City Councilmember Ed Prince
Labor Liaison Mark Riker
Fife (Pierce) Mayor Kim Roscoe
King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove
King County Councilmember Peter Von Reichbauer
Tacoma (Pierce) Mayor Kristina Walker
The KCRHA Governing Committee currently includes:
Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus
Redmond Mayor Angela Birney
King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci
King County Executive Dow Constantine
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell
Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold
Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis
King County Councilmember Joe McDermott
Renton City Councilmember Ed Prince
(NOTE: There are supposed to be an additional three members of KCRHA’s Governing Committee who have “lived experience.” Yet in another example of administrative failure, only one of these positions has been filled.)
King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci is one of six local politicians who serve on both the KCRHA & Sound Transit governing committees
It is interesting that six of the nine elected officials on the KCRHA Governing Committee (in bold) also serve on the Sound Transit Board of Directors. These politicians are not exactly building a record of success with their “leadership” in both these troubled entities.
Now, just ask yourself, with 17 of 19 members of the Sound Transit Board of Directors, and nine of the 12 members of KCRHA’s Governing Committee, being officials elected to serve another constituency, how accountable voters are they for their Sound Transit and KCRHA decisions? Sadly, there is minimal accountability.
When deciding who to support, voters nearly always weigh issues related to the office these politicians are running for far more heavily than they do their roles with Sound Transit and/or KCRHA. Joe and Jane Voter in the suburbs care more about the installation of a new sidewalk in their neighborhood, police/fire response times, fixing potholes, etc., than they do about homeless encampments in SoDo or continual cost overruns and construction delays on the rail line to Ballard.
Also, most voters probably do not even know that their mayor or city councilmember are “leaders” on these multi-jurisdictional organizations.
So while Sound Transit and KCRHA are wallowing in failures, the elected officials on these boards know it will not impact their “electability” the next time they run for office.
This is music to the ears of big government liberals. Bigger and more wasteful government with no accountability is nirvana to bureaucrats and government employee union bosses.
The effectiveness of government is often dependent on being accountable to the voters. The current organizational structure of both the KCRHA and Sound Transit are not accountable to voters, and neither are effective in meeting their goals.
Maybe it is time to redesign the organizational structure to bring more accountability to these taxpayer-funded organizations. What about having the one individual in charge (CEO) face the voters every four years? Thus there would be a reason to be accountable to whether promises and deadlines are met.
Or maybe we remove the current governing boards and replace it with a three-person panel elected by districts.
There are plenty of ways to make KCRHA and Sound Transit more efficient and responsive to voters. These need to be discussed, because the current method is clearly not working.
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