In August last year, then King County Executive Dow Constantine stood with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and Sound Transit leadership, and together, committed to lead Seattle’s return to in-person work. On that day, King County announced that employees would be expected to be at their worksites at least three days a week, and by January 2025, agencies were to have plans for an increased on-site schedule and strategy for hybrid workers. Yet, a full year later, most County employees who can work remotely are still primarily working from home, with no real plan to increase in-person work.
It is long overdue that King County follow through on its commitment to return to in-person work set the clear expectation that a majority of its employees will be in the office for at least a majority of the work week. This action would be in step with other major employers including Starbucks, Amazon, Microsoft, and nearly all other local governments across the nation.
Despite the county’s commitment to lead the return to in-person work, long awaited “return to office” plans by county departments instead are institutionalizing a permanent work-from-home culture. A prime example is the county office space at King Street Station, in which a major King County building was just renovated to accommodate a hybrid workforce and permanently removed dedicated workstations for the majority of employees. While billed as return-to-office, many County employees are only required to work in-persons little as one day per week, and some divisions, like the Permitting Division, will not return to in-person work in any capacity. The Department of Natural Resources and Parks openly admit that even with the upgraded facilities, they will only be able to accommodate half of their 1,131-person workforce at two days per week.
As a government with nearly 18,000 employees and a key participant in Seattle’s downtown workforce, King County has an obligation to be visible, accessible, and active in the community it serves. County employees need to show up for work in-person to foster collaboration, information sharing, and connection with supervisors and county leaders, which clearly yields the best results for government. But most important, in person work provides accountability for a bureaucratic workforce that is union protected, hard to fire, and who are currently paid based on an in-office schedule. This is not the fault of King County employees or the unions that represent them; this gap is a direct result of poor choices by county leadership.
The disfunction of a work-from-home culture was surely a contributing factor in the recent audit of DCHS contracting, which found a lack of internal controls that put millions of tax-payer dollars at risk. This damning study showed a lack of cohesive standards for contracting, lack of training, and lack of communication, that caused inconsistent enforcement of contracts and opportunities for abuse.
Yet, as King County government has become less accessible, less responsive, less accurate, and less accountable to its constituency, it continues to ask for more in new taxes. This year alone it is asking residents to pay five new taxes. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, King County’s annual operating budget has doubled, adding 2,384 new county positions (most working from home), a 15.6% increase in our workforce.
This disparity between what the county asks for and what it delivers is an artifact of a government that is increasingly disconnected from those they serve. Whether it is excessively long permitting wait times, diminished police services, transit that is too dangerous to be comfortably used by the general public, correction facilities that are massively understaffed, or a homelessness crisis that worsens year after year, it’s unacceptable that King County is delivering less while asking for more.
While in-person work may address the malaise of a disconnected workforce or support a struggling downtown business sector, it is a much more fundamental leadership principle at stake. There is a reason we hold our meetings in public and county leaders show up at public events—the public has a right to see their government at work so that they know what their taxes are paying for. How does a government whose fundamental duty is leadership, providing for the public good, do so when they fail to take part in the experiences facing everyday people?
For all these reasons, today I am introducing legislation that commits King County to returning a majority of county employees to on-site work for the majority of the week and requires true accountability for this transition. While there will inevitably be unique needs and employee cases that warrant flexibility, King County is overdue in fulfilling its commitment to bring employees back to work and it can no longer be delayed. King County must signal now that we are accessible to the public, responsive to community needs, and ready to serve. King County employees must be required to return to work by our elected leaders.
