During her first year as a County Councilmember in 2016, Claudia Balducci noticed that every Friday her inbox would receive a mini-flood of reports being forwarded by the Clerk’s Office. The reports were prepared by County employees in response to a variety of requirements in the County Code.  Some of the reports provided valuable information that Councilmembers used to make policy decisions. Others, well, their usefulness was less clear.

In 2017, Councilmember Balducci asked Council staff to review the entire code and determine how many ongoing reporting requirements existed and whether or not the reports were useful in the Council’s work.

“This was a New Year’s Resolution for me,” she said. “I wanted to be sure that we were getting only those reports we needed and that County employees weren’t spending time writing or reviewing reports that we don’t use.”

Council staff reviewed all of the code, which exceeds 700 pages, and identified 119 ongoing reporting requirements. Some of these requirements involved more than one report per year and some were every other year. In total, the Code required between 130 and 135 reports annually, depending on the year. Staff evaluated each report to determine if it was used in their work and Councilmembers reviewed the list to see which reports should be kept and which did not need to be keptfor decision making.

The review showed that quite a few of the reporting requirements weren’t needed.  In some cases, circumstances had changed and the reports were no longer relevant. For instance, there were three reports required from committees that no longer exist. In other cases, the information was readily available elsewhere.  Regional Animal Services of King County, for example, publishes data about the number of animals served on its website so a report is redundant.

At its last meeting in 2017, the Council approved an ordinance that eliminated the unneeded reporting requirements, which translated into 40 fewer reports a year. In addition, it changed the frequency of or combined what had previously been 42 separate reports a year into 14.  In total, the updated Code requires County employees to prepare about half as many reports in 2018 as in 2017.

This bit of housekeeping is an important piece of running the government. As Councilmember Balducci concluded, “The County Code sets the rules for the government and keeping it up-to-date and relevant ensures that we are spending our time serving the public rather than serving the bureaucracy.”

Responding to employee feedback, KCIT recently deployed new, Windows 10 PCs using a ‘high touch’ customer service approach with Fleet Division work teams to ensure that employees are using the right tools, the right way from day one. 

IT Enterprise Manager Charlie Bozonier leads various teams who support digital transformation.  

Charlie said that employee workstations and laptops are now equipped with tools like Office 365 and OneDrive, “capabilities that they might not know how to use or would’ve had to discover by themselves had not someone helped them out.” 

KCIT coordinated the delivery of the new systems with trainers being onsite and ready to help Fleet employees start learning how to use the software. KCIT also develops in-classroom modules to teach staff some of the more powerful parts of the software. 

KCIT is working to provide County employees with tailored training sessions to enhance their systems knowledge and to improve their workplace productivity.  

With thousands of employees soon to get Windows 10 machines, KCIT is going to keep providing ‘high touch’ training sessions for teams looking to explore the new capabilities within the software to enhance their workflows. 

Custom training allows for the support of Lean process work that the business has already invested in.  “We do a good job of understanding what their new processes are going to be, and then we build the training to meet their specific processes,” Charlie said. 

Trainings where KCIT invests 3-4 hours specifically to a workflow is reasonably priced. SharePoint beginner and intermediate classes – free trainings through KCIT – are another response to employee requests for technology assistance. 

The goal for successful training is that employees are completely comfortable with their technology tools by the end of their session.   

Training opportunities are available to employees and teams looking to improve their day-to-day workflow processes or wanting to learn new software to enhance their productivity with Windows 10.  

Find out more about the KCIT End-User Training opportunities. 

Learn more and get involved in Metro’s plans for the future and the current projects underway. for more information about King County Metro, please visit www.kingcounty.gov/metro. 

Follow Have a say at KC Metro on Facebook today.       

Click here to view all King County social media pages.   

Shared from the DCHS Touching Base Newsletter  

DCHS’s Safety and Emergency Management Committee and King County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) teamed up to bring an Emergency Preparedness Fair to Chinook on Nov. 30, 2017.

The fair was a big hit, drawing more than 160 King County staff during the two-hour period. Attendees had the opportunity to get resources and learn from seven exhibitors:

• King County OEM
• Public Health
• FMD Security
• DNRP’s Flood Warning Center
• Safety and Claims Management
• Puget Sound Energy
• Supply vendor American Preparedness

All exhibitors received a lot of traffic and engagement from attendees, who were appreciative of the resources (and swag!) offered. Attendees also had the opportunity to buy emergency supplies from supply vendor American Preparedness, as well as enter a drawing to win raffle prizes.

The Chinook Emergency Preparedness Fair was brought to you in part by DCHS’s Safety and Emergency Management Committee!

View more photos of this event on SharePoint.

To learn more about what DCHS is doing in our community, read the most recent issue of the Touching Base Newsletter (on SharePoint).