‘It’s just the Wild West’: Councilmember Dunn says he pushed for audit years before King County fraud revealed

King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn told “The John Curley Show” he had been pushing for an audit for years before the alleged King County fraud was revealed. His concerns preceded The Seattle Times‘ investigation, which found the King County Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) had ignored red flags about contractors misusing tax dollars.

“Wow, you look like a movie star today,” KIRO host John Curley quipped. “What did you do?”

“I’ll tell you what I did, John, I was right, and I feel really good,” Dunn said.

According to The Seattle Times, DCHS knew of allegations that organizations were misusing money meant for disadvantaged communities, but continued to pay them anyway. Meanwhile, Dunn, sensing something was off, had been begging for an audit.

“Was it three years ago? When did you first start saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to audit?'” Curley asked. “We got money going out. We don’t know if these are hitting the metrics. Let’s put the brakes on this program.”

“Yeah, that’s about right,” Dunn responded. “I was hammering on the state auditor, the county auditor, a couple of different times, actually, three, and then nobody would do an audit. Finally, I had to get legislation passed and forced the auditor to do it. She did it. It came back really bad, and now The Seattle Times has dug into it and, with an expose saying it’s maybe even worse than I thought.”

The Seattle Times uncovers lax oversight in alleged King County fraud

The Seattle Times explained that contractors would request money and receive it without any oversight into whether the funds were actually being used as claimed. For example, Gerry Hill, a licensed cosmetologist, signed a three-year, $470,000 agreement with the county to provide job training opportunities for young adults of color.

She registered her business, Your Pretty Perfect, and said it had community outreach staff and a long list of workshops lined up. However, many of the people named as partners told The Seattle Times they never worked with Hill. In her report to the county, Hill failed to provide the required information, writing “done,” “not yet,” or “anytime” in fields that asked for data, such as the number of young adults she worked with.

Dunn said around $1.8 billion is funneled through the DCHS program every 18 months or so, and auditors have only scratched the surface.

“Now you’re talking about a $10 billion annual budget for the entire King County, right? So you’re talking about somewhere between 10 and 20% of what we appropriate every year, and they audited just 2% of that and found massive amounts of problems,” he explained.

Auditors have only scratched the surface in King County fraud investigation

Hill’s business is only one of many that have allegedly taken advantage of the DCHS grant program.

“Of the 36 or so they audited, 21 were referred for some type of enforcement follow-up because there was evidence of fraud or improper dealings, etc, that are costing taxpayers a lot of money,” Dunn said.

Dunn noted he’s actively working to restructure the process so that funding is being used for its original intention.

“It’s just the Wild West, and unfortunately, it’s a very bad reflection on King County government,” he said. “And so I’m trying to straighten up the process, right the ship, and make sure that tax dollars going out the door are going to programs that work and are accountable.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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