Summary

Residents requesting public records from King County will find the process more streamlined and easier to navigate under a new ordinance proposed by Executive Kurt Triplett. The ordinance, which covers public records and how the county retains records, follows the recent adoption by the state Attorney General’s office of King County’s approach as a model policy for how public records requests are handled statewide.

Story

Residents requesting public records from King County will find the process more streamlined and easier to navigate under a new ordinance proposed by Executive Kurt Triplett. The ordinance, which covers public records and how the county retains records, follows the recent adoption by the state Attorney General’s office of King County’s approach as a model policy for how public records requests are handled statewide.

The proposed ordinance clarifies and updates definitions and makes other technical changes to King County Code §2.12, in addition to adding new sections relating to the Public Records Act.

Some of the changes have been underway incrementally for the past few years. However, they took on new urgency after high profile public disclosure requests and subsequent lawsuits showed an opportunity to build and strengthen King County’s Public Disclosure Program and make it easier to navigate for residents seeking public records.

A major step in 2005 was centralizing county responses through the newly created position of King County Public Disclosure Officer, which immediately improved the quality and timeliness of King County’s public disclosure response efforts. In addition, the Public Disclosure Officer has trained more than 300 county employees in the basic principles of public disclosure, including emphasis on quality service to the public (transparency in government) and avoiding common record management mistakes (risk management). An added benefit of the centralized approach is that all the branches of King County government now work cooperatively on major requests that affect multiple branches, thereby improving response times and accuracy.

King County also created its own Public Disclosure Tracking system software to manage public disclosure requests. The web-based program allows participating agencies to view the status and nature of public disclosure requests assigned to them and track time spent on requests. The success of the system has led to it being licensed for use by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office and the Port of Tacoma.

As a result of these and other innovations outlined for council codification in this proposed ordinance, in 2008, King County’s public disclosure accomplishments were listed in the “Best Practices” portion of the Washington State Auditor’s Performance Audit Report, “Open Public Record Practices at 30 Government Entities.”

The proposed amendment was produced collaboratively by a team composed of the Clerk of the Council, King County Code Reviser, Records and Licensing Services Division, King County Public Disclosure Officer, and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

In addition, the proposed ordinance was reviewed, commented on, and recommended for approval by the county’s Public Records Committee, which advises the King County Council and the County Executive on county public records policies and is made up of a broad membership of representatives from county departments and separately elected agencies.

There is no cost associated with this proposed ordinance, which has been transmitted by Executive Triplett to the King County Council for review and approval.