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Fallout from bad government in WA? There wonrCOt be any
March 28, 2026 at 6:00 am Updated March 28, 2026 at 6:00 am

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay speaks at a news conference
regarding an effort to stem fraud in county programs. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)

Danny Westneat By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times columnist

A decade ago, when King County first asked voters for $392 million in
property taxes for the Best Starts for Kids program, the only group
opposing it called itself rCLSmart Choices King County.rCY

rCLThis levy sounds nice,rCY the group wrote in the 2015 voters guide. rCLBut it is a rCyblank checkrCO without details on how it will be spent.rCY

rCLThey donrCOt tell you before the fact what yourCOre buying,rCY one member told The Seattle Times.

This critique was correct. Elected officials even acknowledged it at the
time. But they argued that figuring out grants for early learning and child-support groups later, on the fly, was a nimbler approach that
would better serve the community.

The critics lost the argument. Fast-forward to today. This funding,
which ballooned past $1 billion when a second kids levy was approved in
2021, is at the center of the mushrooming grants scandal at King County.

It turns out some of the groups started taking the money but not doing
the work. Some were obvious scams, what one county employee called a rCLblatant misuse of funds.rCY But with little oversight the county kept
right on paying out the money, and fired one employee who called
attention to possible fraud.

Of 36 contracts later reviewed by an auditor, 19 showed possible
improper payments or fraud. This audit covered only about 2% of the
money spent on grants in a year, so it could be just the tip of the
fraudberg.

Bottom line: The program was too much of a blank check.

The grants for kids and other programs clearly needed more guardrails.
The most damning sentence in a blockbuster Seattle Times investigative
report last week was when a former state auditor summed up King CountyrCOs internal reaction: rCLIt seems like their response was just, rCyOh well.rCO rCY

ThatrCOs some really bad government, right there. ThatrCOs government that expects to be bad.

So what will be the fallout from this round of bad government? Probably
not much, unfortunately.

We are in a political era where bad local government doesnrCOt seem to
really matter. ItrCOs too overshadowed by how catastrophically bad things
are in D.C.

It doesnrCOt tend to trigger rounds of accountability among public
officials, as it sometimes did in the past. It doesnrCOt seem to register
much with the voting public.

The person most responsible for King CountyrCOs grant-making boom in the period at issue, 2019 to 2025, was the King County executive back then,
Dow Constantine. He also was the force behind the ad hoc style of Best
Starts for Kids, in steering grants to higher-risk, untested community
groups. He moved on to become the CEO of Sound Transit.

The Metropolitan King County Council was responsible for overseeing and watchdogging the programs. One of the members who overlooked these
problems, Girmay Zahilay, has since been elected executive. Most of the
rest are still there, but likewise arenrCOt feeling any particular
political heat for falling down on the job.

The council member who did raise a stink is a notable outlier to the
local political system. Meaning, herCOs a Republican. Reagan Dunn is about
the last Republican standing in King County. (ThererCOs also Pete von Reichbauer, but herCOs a relatively silent County Council member at this point.) Dunn was howling at everyone who wouldnrCOt listen back in 2023
that some of these grantees were running amok.

rCLItrCOs just the Wild West, and unfortunately, itrCOs a very bad reflection on King County government,rCY Dunn said this past week, about being proved correct.

IrCOve argued in this space many times that the self-destruction of the
local Republican Party is a bad development rCo and not just for
Republicans. Both parties can go bonkers when they have total control.
Around here, the GOPrCOs mad descent into Trumpism has left the field
entirely to the Democrats.

Kudos to Dunn then for resisting the MAGA nonsense of his own party,
while still serving as a town crier about the excesses of the other
party. Not an easy balancing act.

But back to the part about bad government. Will this scandal lead to
better government?

The county is proposing to set up an inspector generalrCOs office so it
can better vet outside contracts. That a $10 billion annual operation doesnrCOt have one already is a sign of how lax things had gotten.

A bigger issue, though, is whether modern politics is even set up to
result in a government that functions.

One academic paper recently argued that no, it isnrCOt.

rCLEffective government is the forgotten pillar of democracy,rCY a New York University legal scholar, Richard Pildes, says.

Having government work well has become an afterthought in the public
dialogue. ThererCOs little political incentive for it. Voters today mostly yearn to stick it to the other party. Or theyrCOre motivated by primal concerns, like ideology or identity.

You can feel this happening right now with state Democrats and the new millionaires income tax.

Democrats got the primal part down rCo they taxed the rich. Taking a nick
out of the wealthy is likely to be a hit with big slices of the electorate.

But that isnrCOt really the government part. What the money might be used
for remains murky. ItrCOs a bit like the Best Starts for Kids levy, in
that theyrCOre saying rCLtrust us,rCY give us the money and werCOll do right by
it later.

The trouble is it comes at a time when state government is sputtering.
The public schools are perceived as declining in quality, at least by
test scores; the state budget is chronically in deficit; taxes are way
up yet many services remain in crisis; the business climate is
deteriorating, and so on.

This past week a Pew Charitable Trusts report noted that Democrats here
have spent down our staterCOs rainy day fund to the second smallest in the nation rCo though we arenrCOt having a rainy day.

If Republicans are allegedly the party of small government, Democrats
are supposed to be the party of good government. Good means
well-intended, sure. But it also used to imply a government that works.

ItrCOs a generational failure of Democrats, who run everything around
here, that they have gotten away from government needing to work. For starters, when government fails, it helps the small government argument. ItrCOs also just bad for your own constituents. ThererCOs not an obvious, immediate way out of this spiral, other than to appeal to Democrats to
reform themselves.

The political reality, though, is they donrCOt need to. Not with one
Donald Trump lurching around breaking things and threatening the
democratic order. Voters are far more keyed up on that, understandably,
than they are the rCLboring but importantrCY expenditure of local taxpayer dollars.

It means local Democrats can do just about whatever they wish, for now,
for better or worse. The good, the bad or, in the case of the grants
gone wild, the downright ugly.

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Danny Westneat: dwestneat@seattletimes.com. Danny Westneat, a metro news columnist at The Seattle Times since 2004, takes an opinionated look at
the Puget Sound region's news, people and politics.


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