Kudos! Metro’s solar-lit shelters recognized by Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council
King County Metro received an Outstanding Case Study Award from the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council for the solar lighting upgrades to the County’s bus shelters. SPLC’s annual Leadership Awards program recognizes public and private sector organizations for leveraging purchasing power to advance the long-term health and vitality of society, economies, and the planet.
In January, Employee News featured Metro’s efforts in the Using the sun’s energy to illuminate bus shelters blog post.
The Outstanding Case Study Award is in recognition of the County’s contribution of a valuable case study to the library of case studies in SPLC’s online community. King County has won seven of these awards in the past three years, three of which have been won by the County’s Department of Transportation.
Case studies that meet SPLC’s Outstanding Case Study Award criteria exemplify one or more of its Principles for leadership in sustainable purchasing, and tells the story – including lessons learned – of a set of activities that led to measurable results in terms of environmental, social and economic performance of purchasing.
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Best Starts for Kids Health Survey Recognized with National Equity Award
Crossposted from the Best Starts for Kids Blog
Last fall and winter, almost 6,000 people participated in a survey to learn about the health and well-being of King County kids and families. The survey closed January 31st. Our data team has been hard at work crunching numbers and analyzing this data, and you’ll hear more about what we learned soon. However, there’s one thing we know already: the groundbreaking new methods we used in the Best Starts for Kids Health Survey lead the nation in ensuring our data reflects the strengths and needs of all King County kids and families.
A nation-wide panel of epidemiologists selected the Best Starts for Kids Health Survey for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) National Award for Outstanding Epidemiology Practice in Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities. Judges selected the Best Starts Evaluation Team’s work from over 900 applications based on its impact on efforts to eliminate health disparities, potential for creating long term change, and overall contribution to public health knowledge. Public Health’s Kristin Moore received the award at the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ Annual Conference last week.
Read more at the Best Starts for Kids Blog
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Record number of bidders for Fleet Administration spring auction
Crossposted from Inside Transportation 
King County Fleet Administration held its version of a spring garage sale last month, but customers weren’t shopping for gently-worn sweaters or antique dishware. Instead, bids were taken on scores of tractors, autos, vans, pickups, trucks and heavy machinery.
Fleet Administration holds two auto and heavy equipment auctions each year, one in spring and one in fall. Both are on Saturdays, and both are open to the general public as well as to nonprofits and government agencies and employees.
The 2017 Spring Auction drew a record 500 bidders on Saturday, May 20, at Harold Mather Auctioneers in Renton. These bidders submitted their best offers on Fleet vehicles and equipment that have outlived their useful life for County operations, but are still have some life left in them for a new owner.
Read more at Inside Transportation
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Saving lives on the paramedic beat
Crossposted from Public Health Insider
Today, we’re taking a closer look at Advanced Life Support (ALS) response. Sent to an incident by 911 dispatchers, ALS personnel, better known as paramedics, are sent to scenes where more intensive medical care is required, such as a heart attack or substantial physical trauma. Emergency Medical Technicians may have already reached the scene, providing initial support until paramedic units arrive.
We talked with Matt Riesenberg, Chief of Operations at King County Medic One, to learn more about his work as a paramedic
Read more at Public Health Insider
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Metro is taking action to address cost, quality, and equity in Access paratransit
Crossposted from Metro Matters
By Chris O’Claire, Metro Transit Assistant General Manager, and Priscilla Vargas, Managing Director of Paratransit and Rideshare Operations
Metro Transit is committed to continuing to improve the Access paratransit service we provide to qualifying riders who cannot ride fixed-route bus service. The King County Auditor’s Office has presented the findings of a performance audit of Access Transportation to the King County Council. Metro concurs with the recommendations of the audit and is moving forward to address each of them.
The audit results echo feedback Metro staff solicited and received from customers over the last year, even as Metro worked collaboratively with the auditor. Metro listened to public feedback from customers, caregivers, stakeholders, and a community advisory group. Together, this feedback identified areas of improvement that Metro used to inform current and future service improvements.
Read more at Metro Matters
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New video series on protecting immigrants and refugees
King County has put together a series of videos to help us learn more about the challenges facing immigrants and refugees in King County and across the country.
The videos, recorded as part of a recent Equity and Social Justice event, are now available as a series entitled “Protecting Immigrants and Refugees: Our local response.”
You can watch each of the videos, which feature speakers from five local community organizations, below:
- Aneelah Afzali, founder and executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network, a new initiative launched by the Muslim Association of Puget Sound (MAPS)
- Mozart Guerrier, executive director of 21 Progress
- Diane Narasaki, executive director of Asian Counseling and Referral Services (ACRS)
- Hamdi Abdulle, executive director of Somali Youth & Family Club
- Mauricio Ayon, political director of Service Employees International Union Local 6.
Learn more here about how King County is welcoming immigrant and refugee communities.
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Executive meets with employees to hear ideas on improving veteran services
King County Executive Dow Constantine recently met with eight employees to hear their experiences and thoughts on what King County can do to improve services to veterans, seniors and vulnerable populations, the people who would receive support from the Executive’s proposed Veterans, Seniors and Human Services Levy.
The employees from the Department of Community and Human Services, District Court and Public Health – Seattle & King County, many of whom are veterans themselves, provide an array of support services to veterans and other clients, such as case management, housing assistance, healthcare and education or training support.
“Some of you are veterans yourselves and all of you provide direct services to veterans and others in our community, and all of you have unique perspectives on what we can do to improve our services to veterans and seniors and people who are facing particular challenges, such as homelessness,” Executive Constantine said to the group.
Some of the issues the group raised included getting veterans into housing, particularly with the shortage of homes and the rapidly rising cost of housing in King County; better coordination and easier navigation of the array of federal, state and local services available to veterans; expanding resources to treat veterans charged with domestic violence offences; and providing funding to get veterans short-term training to adapt the skills they acquired in the military into skills or certifications for jobs in the civilian world.
There were also recommendations for what we can do to help more veterans succeed in King County careers, including training for supervisors with veterans reporting to them which recognizes the different management styles between the military and King County; and establishing mentoring or affinity groups to connect employee-veterans at the County with other employee-veterans.
On May 22 Executive Constantine announced his proposal to replace the expiring Veterans and Human Services Levy with a new levy that will increase the county’s capacity to serve veterans and vulnerable populations, and add new services to help the region’s rapidly growing senior population.
Thank you to all the employees who shared their knowledge and ideas with the Executive in this employee listening session!
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Featured Job: Capital Projects Oversight Analyst – Council
Closing Date/Time: Monday 06/19/17 4:00 PM Pacific Time
Salary: $102,038.00 – $137,230.00 Annually
Job Type: Appointed
Location: King County Auditor’s Office – 516 Third Ave, Room W-1033, Seattle, WA 98104, Washington
Department: King County Council
Description: The Auditor’s Office is hiring an experienced professional to oversee county capital projects. Qualifications include a degree in engineering, architecture, construction management, or related technical discipline, and/or significant experience in delivery of capital projects.
The selected candidate will join a committed, tight-knit team of exceptional analysts who drive improvement in King County government. We prioritize work-life balance while achieving meaningful results. Our culture emphasizes respectful intellectual debate, being our full selves at work, being creative in order to make a difference, and leadership from all levels. This role is both independent and team-focused and offers the selected candidate a great deal of influence over how to achieve program goals.
Learn more about this position, or view all available jobs.
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Summertime discounts for employees
Employees are welcome to take advantage of two new discounts:
Wild Waves -The Metro Employees Recreational Activities Association (MERAA) is offering discounted tickets to Wild Waves to King County employees. MERAA is NOT receiving any money or percentage of tickets sold. The online purchase price is $25.00 and Main Gate prices are $43.79. Click here to access this offer (PDF).
Puget Sound Moving offers affordable, reliable solutions to the most common moving problems, including the complete packing, storage and shipment of our customers’ belongings at competitive prices. King County employees are eligible for a $10 discount on our services at our Seattle and Kent locations. Just mention “KingCounty.gov” over the phone or in the Tell Us More section of the online quote. Visit www.psmoving.com for our contact information and our online quote form.
See all available discounts on the Employee Discount Webpage.
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What is “Investing in You?”
Last week Executive Constantine launched Investing in You, a strategy that brings together our work in Equity and Social Justice, Best-Run Government: Employees and Continuous Improvement into a single, comprehensive plan focused on making King County a great place to work.
By aligning this work into a single strategy we can ensure that all of the County’s employee-focused efforts are working collaboratively towards the same goal – a fair, supportive, innovative and racially diverse workplace – and we can see how the individual components fit together.
Investing in You teams are working on key actions in six goal areas: Workplace Culture; Health, Well-Being and Safety; Learning and Growth; Racially Diverse and Culturally Responsive at All Levels; Total Compensation; and Business Operations and Systems that support employees. These teams will track and report their progress to the Executive’s Office and to employees.
Watch this short video to learn more and visit the Investing in You website for more details on some of the 2017 priority actions.
Employee News 