AN ORDINANCE approving and adopting a memorandum of agreement regarding Joint Labor Management Insurance Committee (JLMIC) Insured Benefits Agreements for 2017-2018 and 2019-2020 negotiated by and between King County and King County Corrections Guild (Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention) representing employees in the department of adult and juvenile detention; and establishing the effective date of the agreement.
Is Leo here yet? He is here. There he is. Okay. Thank you for being here. Leo, we've got a brief introductory staff report from Miranda Luskin. And when we invite you to come forward at any time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Miranda Luskin to the Council Central staff. The materials for this item begin on page 113 of your packet. The proposed motion before you would confirm the executive's appointment of Leo Flor as director of the Department of Community and Human Services. By way of very brief background, the King County Department of Community and Human Services manages a wide range of programs and services to assist the county's most vulnerable residents and strengthen its communities. The Department is also responsible for providing leadership and coordination to the regional efforts to address homelessness through all home, as well as oversight and management of the revenues from the Veterans, Seniors and Human Services. Levy the best rates for kids levy and the mental illness and drug dependency sales tax. Moreover, as a primary Regional Services Department, teachers plays a strong role in the coordination of the region's human services infrastructure. The DCH DCH has director oversees the Department's operations, planning and budgeting. As members are aware, executive appointment of the DCH as director is subject to council confirmation per county code. So approval of the proposed motion before you would fulfill this code requirement. Of note as described in the executive transmittal letter, Mr. Floor was the successful candidate from a nationwide recruitment for the new director of DHS. His work experience, which is described in further detail in his resumé, includes serving as the DCH, US Veterans and Human Services Levee Renewal Manager and then as director of the DC Jazz Community Services Division. Additionally, Mr. Floor served in Iraq and Afghanistan as an officer in the U.S. Army. As a late breaking update. The background check has been completed and that paperwork will be transmitted shortly. A copy of Mr. Flores resume and completed questionnaire are included in your pocket materials, starting on page 119. Mr. Chair, that concludes my staff report. Thank you very much, Miranda. Leo, would you like to say a few words? And I will ask members who have questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Look for the red light there, and it's sometimes hidden. There you go. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Leo Flor from the Department of Community and Human Services. And first, just to acknowledge and thank the Executive and the Council for the honor of consideration to perform a role on a team that does some of, I think, our region's most critical work, serving some of the residents in our region that have the least access to opportunity. And so it's just an honor and a privilege to be able to work with the team that I know does fantastic work within the Department of Community and Human Services and in a region that has really strong support for this type of work to support our residents. Excellent. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve council members on the panel. Do you have questions? Comments? Councilmember Lambert, then Councilmember Gossett and Councilmember Cole Wells. Thank you. I just want to say that I am very excited to have this opportunity to vote for Leo today, and I'm very thankful for the leadership he's already shown during his previous position, but also during the transition time. I have seen him in his previous position and do community participation meetings and did a fabulous job on that. And there are many, many people with many ideas at these community participation meetings and he was able to make sure everybody was heard and then recapped so that people knew that they were heard. And that was great. Seeing him have the ability to keep lots of items, programs, systems in his mind. As you said, this is a very large agency with lots and lots of things happening. But in addition to those things, he's innovative. And when ideas come up and ways to serve people, they are different because we have to look at more innovative ways of getting to people in various different parts of this county and with different needs. He's open to innovation. He motivates his employees and encourages them. He's well-organized, and for all those reasons and more, he's a pleasure to work with. So I'm looking forward to having you permanently in this position. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Lambert, Councilmember Gossett, good morning. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Leo. What specifically was your job at the Northwest Justice Project during the nearly two and a half year period you worked there. I can't hear you. Thank you, Councilmember. It was not at my job at Northwest Justice Project. After nine years, I was a staff attorney and Equal Justice Works fellow. So I represented incarcerated or justice involved veterans providing free civil legal assistance either in place within a jail or prison or for folks who were actually defendants within our local treatment courts here . So the King County Mental Health Court has a veterans court component and also the Seattle Veterans Treatment Court. And the substance of that work primarily was going to veterans who did not have access in their criminal process to civil assistance. The actual types of cases tended to be public benefits, debt relief, and then housing stability cases. And the idea that animated all of that, which is something that I look forward to carrying forward into this work, is that the systems that we often operate as silos actually work better for the people within them when we figure out ways to connect and combine them. And so in that case, it was the ability to go into a prison, for example, and help with benefits access so that as a veteran was going to be released into the community, they didn't have this 30 day or in some cases 30 month lapse where their benefits were not on and they weren't able to fully reintegrate into their communities. So advocate legal advocacy as well as broader kinds of access and advocacy for veterans that are incarcerated or face an incarceration. And the primary duty certainly was representation of individual clients. Northwest Justice Project as a Legal Services Corporation funded entity actually has limitations against advocacy, in particular word, but certainly an ability to help, educate and help the broader system understand the role of legal aid for those particular clients. Okay. The number of programs. Ours and your department are very broad. Many of them are complex, and it's hundreds of millions of dollars. So I would like to ask you, what is your perspective on evaluations, particularly performance evaluations, where your aim is to ascertain how effective a program is and how well people were served and whether or not people are better off. In terms of your prioritization of your duties, where does that leave in terms of importance? Thank you, Councilmember. So first, my brief response. Evaluation is critical, and performance management and management are critical. We do distinguish between the two, but both of those have a role to play in the way that we design, implement and then refine, importantly, the programs. As you mention, Councilmember, there is both a large amount in terms of the amount of resources for which DHS is responsible. There's also a tremendous variety, and a lot of those sources are actually sources that are subject either to regular approval by some sort of other government or granting entity or the public itself. And so to answer the question in another way, Councilmember, I think our ability to understand where we are succeeding, to understand where we need to do better, and then to actually demonstrate how we are doing better is critical to making sure that both other entities that might provide funding and then the public continues to have confidence in that. Confidence grows in our ability to handle what is what is objectively a large amount of resource. And really all of that goes to what I think is a sort of core principle of a government, which is that we must be credible when we say that we are doing something well, I think that we must be credible when we say that we need to fix something. I think we must be credible when we say, you know, that this is why we believe a particular resource is warranted for a particular project of the faith of the public, I think is important. The third part that I would add in terms of evaluation and performance measurement, this is a place where I think we can move further towards is that we have very often evaluated in the context of how we, the government, might see ourselves. But I think embedded within your question, Councilmember, is the idea that the government often is not even the primary audience for the services that a department like DHS provides. In fact, I think that's the residents that we serve. And so one of the exciting things that has taken hold within the department and I look forward to moving further towards is this idea that we can ask the people we serve very directly how they think we are doing. We have some guidance within the recently passed budget that will allow us a formal opportunity to do that. But this idea of engaging the community, not just as we plan, but as we evaluate and then refine our programs, I think is something that is an important sort of state of the art approach within Human Services, and I look forward to implementing that. And then the chair my last question, at this time, at least earlier and 2018, I think the beginning of the year, we had the our audit staff do an audit of the evaluation activities of be ask that starts for kids. And that's one concern that we have is that the audit findings, whether they be internal or external audits, go to the person in your position and the person at the head of public health rather than directly to the executive and the legislative branch. I don't know if that has changed or not, but I would like to know what your position is in terms of where either internal final reports or external final reports for audit, who are the first to be submitted to? Thank you, Councilmember. I'm not familiar with the protocols of the auditor in terms of who has entitlement. The first notice, what I can say from the department's perspective is that any audit finding is one public information into a really clearly articulated opportunity for us to do something better. And I don't think that there's any profit in in hiding or concealing that. And this gets to the idea of credibility, again, I think, for DHS to continuing to grow into further credibility as a as a government entity, folks need to know and have confidence in the fact that we share the good news and the bad news and then a plan to do so. Something about the bad news. That's our duty as public servants. I don't know the answer to your specific question, council member Ed. The auditors protocol. That's certainly how I would approach it, though, is that we share these opportunities to improve and that we do something about them. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Leo, first of all, congratulations on the appointment. Reviewing your background materials. You really are a superb candidate for this position. And I echo what Councilmember Lambert said in her remarks, which I thought were very poignant and very well stated. Some might say that you were only having been working with Department of Community Human Services for two shy of three years, that it's really been a meteoric rise for you in the department. That in looking back at your background and I believe you might, you've always struck me as being very modest in what you present for yourself . But I note that when you completed your military service, which was in combat, it's where a platoon leader second and first lieutenant ending an eight year career, I believe, as the captain in the U.S. Army. Much of that in the combat zones, I'm sure taught you a lot about leadership. But then when you came back, really left the military, you went on to get a law degree at the University of Washington, where Gates public service law scholar, a trained mediator and commencement speaker, which I think says a lot. But then you went on and two years later received a master's through the Department of Urban Planning and Design. So it seems like you're able to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. And then as Councilmember Gossett brought out work for the Northwest Justice Project for three years, two and a half years, and now it's Department of Community and Human Services. I think you have an exceptional background and my experience and working with you for almost three years is she really take on the challenges and you perform them in exemplary ways and I think you again would make an outstanding director of the department. My question though is what motivated you to go into working with DC H.S.? I think you had a whole lot of opportunities most likely to take on many different challenges. But what led you to this public service now different from what you had done in the military? Thank you. Councilmember One is. We have a lot of work to do for people in our community, and I think that that's all of our responsibility. And that is just an ethos of of service, frankly, that I take no credit for myself. I you know, I derive that from my my parents. I'm lucky to have a spouse who shares my value of public service. But King County is a special place. In particular, we have the scope in terms of population and resources. We have the size to make a difference. We have the values as a community to invest in this type of support for our residents and continue to do better. And that's not a confluence of opportunity, frankly, to do good work that exists in most parts of this country or this world, I think. And so there's very much a sense of the unique opportunity within King County to net to knit all of those factors together and I think really lead in our ability to do better. I have a fundamental belief that government has a role to play in improving the lives of residents, and this is just a special place to do that. So I had some exposure as a legal aid attorney to the levy, as a levy funded organization at Northwest Justice Project, and began to saw the potential to see the potential there. And then when the opportunity to work with the better institution, Human Services Levy, which I think is a perfect embodiment of this combination of scale, public buy in and sort of focused assistance for residents who really do merit it. That was an opportunity in that and that worked out and I couldn't be happier with the choice. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Belushi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You just said something that made me think of one of the things that I found to be outstanding about your service on that Seniors and Human Service. And the interactions we've had is this concept of continually striving to do better and to do more. It's something, you know, just this past weekend, we were celebrating the service of deputy executive Fred Jarrett on his retirement. And it's something that he really beat the drum for throughout King County. When I was in the executive branch about the idea that we want to strive for excellence, we want to provide excellent service, I think we do in many ways provide excellent service. But you also have to be willing to be open to self-criticism and critique and to continually improve and not feel that that's a problem, that that's actually an opportunity and something that we and I think that you've been body bad in a lot of ways in what you do. So I wonder if you would talk a little bit about your theory of change or excellence or how do you how do you how do you take what you have seemingly kind of naturally and imbue it in an organization that you're going to now be charged with bringing along with you? Thank you, Councilmember. I do think just leadership generally. I mean, the most potent tool any leader has is example. And so the first thing, if you want an organization that's willing to hear honestly and critically how it can be better, you have to do that yourself. And a thing that I think is not always the stereotype of the military, but you learn very quickly in the military is that the stakes and the relationships are such that there's no time for pretense of self-importance. You really do have to open yourself up and be vulnerable in a way to not only saying, yes, I'm in charge in a formal way, but also we're going to do this together because we can only do this together. And your faith in me is actually dependent upon my ability to show you that I'm going to listen to what you have to say. So so I think example is the most powerful tool that that I have as a member of the DHS team in in sort of cultivating that ethos that you described. The other piece is when we do actually receive as an organization criticism, we have this critical moment where we either do what we said we would do in terms of receiving that and then converting it into a plan to do better or we fail to do that. And one of my jobs is to really be on alert and to seek out those opportunities to receive frank and candid criticism and not go directly into self defense mode, but to really say, you know, thank you, we are going to take that and identify from what you just said, what we can do better, and then come back to you with a plan. And I think the difference between those two reactions not that we don't also accentuate where we have succeeded and make sure that our employees understand that we we have faith in what they do. But the sequence of the message is really important. And I think that the first reaction for public servants should always be, I'm hearing you to understand what you're saying. I'm not hearing to respond to you. And even if that means it's going to take a little bit of time for me to come back to you with what I intend or what we intend to do to do differently and do better. I just need to make sure that you feel heard and so that it's a little squishy in some ways. But I think it's sort of fundamentally important. I think it's I think it's one of the most important things that the leader brings. I mean, knowledge of your subject matter is important. And the ability to manage people and be diligent and be responsive is all critical. But that fundamental orientation towards the job, I think, is you can't substitute for it. And and I want to just echo your point. Sometimes criticism is founded in a misunderstanding of the facts, right? Sometimes people are complaining because they don't understand or they have wrong information. But that's still something that you have to respond to. That's still something that that still tells you that there's a challenge in the organization that needs to be responded to, which is that there's wrong information out there and how do you deal with that? And so I think that orientation of I'm taking this on board in sincerity and then finding out what's happening and doing what what's indicated to address it is, is it's really it's a great success factor. And I think you have it. And I appreciate the way you have always approached us as council members with your work in the past, and I know that you'll bring that to this job. So congratulations. I'm really pleased to see this kind of forward thinking. Council Member Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Floor, I want to underscore some of the conversation that Councilmember Balducci just had with you about leadership and. Use this as examples. My work with you. Your work with me that I have seen you respond to my questions and those of my colleagues hearing the question and the intent behind it and not responding with defensiveness for you personally for the department in ways that. And I'm projects that had a lot of attention a lot of emotion at the time. And I've seen you respond coolly and to the question that either was asked or was intended and clarify the intent and give really strong answers and have appreciated that ability and leadership. And leadership by example. And you and I spoke up in my office last week when we had the chance to visit. I look forward to working with you in some instances when the department is maybe hamstrung or confined by the council or by other forces in or outside of the county to be able to provide the service that we need to people, vulnerable people in our communities without obstruction. And to the degree that I and the Council can work with you to remove those obstructions and be more effective. Please give us every opportunity to do so. I passionately want to work with you to do that. Like a council member. Hey. Anybody else? Councilmember Caldwell's. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. They are a proud, pragmatic business here. What do you see as the major challenges for the department in the coming year? Thank you, Councilmember. I do think that one of the the large scale challenges, opportunities that that DHS has before it. I think a good metaphor to borrow from transit is this last mile issue. Particularly in King County, we do have robust human services systems. We have, you know, certainly not enough, but also large investments in many systems, including affordable housing, homelessness, crisis, behavioral health services for veterans, services for seniors, services for youth. But the way that those large systems connect and combine for particular people, I think in some ways is the art of management that DHS really has an opportunity to continue to get better at. And so what I mean by that is a specific example to have somebody within shelter, but then to be able in a way that is responsive to them as a customer, make a vet to make available behavioral health services, employment services opportunities to move into permanent supportive housing and to combine those in a way that the person can actually realistically and meaningfully encounter those services. That is a last mile challenge or opportunity that we have before us and sort of a responsibility, I think, that we really have in making these large systems and investments with which we've been entrusted work for specific people. And embedded within that is that the access that different folks inside of our community have differs. And so there is certainly a equity in social justice. And I think important to be very clear about this, a race and ethnicity component to those abilities to access services that we should just be very clear eyed about, because I think that's going to understand the problem is the first step in being able to formulate a good solution. So I think those are two intertwined challenges that we have. And then the third, which also entwines, and that is that we do have considerable resources in King County and many of the resources are specific to particular purposes. So we do have special purpose revenue through the mid BSC, Veterans, Seniors and Human Services Levy, federal funds document, recording fees and all of those very appropriately are specified in purpose, either just to purpose, to time or to population or to combinations of those. And so our challenge is to take those diverse resources, but then knit them together in a way that is still meaningfully accessible. So again, it's this last mile issue for the particular people that we need to serve and then to be again clear eyed about who those particular people are. Councilmember Coe Wells And thank you, Leo, for your detailed answers to the committee's general questionnaire. Maybe by way of conclusion, I noticed on your curriculum vitae that you have your basic parachutist badge, meaning you jumped out of airplanes. And I wondered if there were any lessons learned in that training that you expect to apply for this job. It's. That's a good question. And, Mr. Chair, I think the one perhaps obvious, but when you get it wrong, you really get it wrong. Lesson that you learn with parachutes is that you better be ready before you jump out of the plane. If your parachute or your alternate chute are not secured, if you have not correctly hooked up to your static line, if you are not moving in concert with the person in front of you or behind you, the minute you put your knees in the breeze, as they say, and jet wash, it's bad things happen. And I think there is a completely applicable principle to that. One thing that might not be immediately clear to airborne operation that we're getting into something interesting about airborne operations in the Army is that that is not one parachutist leaving the plane. That is a plane full of people who have rehearsed and planned in intricate detail the way that they must all move together as an organism in order to successfully get everybody out of the plane to land on a DC and then accomplish the mission. And I think that's a perfect analogy for the level of preparation, but also the level of teamwork that we within DHS but then with our partners across the community, must strive for in order to be successful on some pretty difficult missions. Mr. Chair, I think we think if we did, I think we have the title of Leo's memoir, Knees in the Breeze. We did not practice that. It was spontaneous. I see. A new department director's award in the form of a little parachute, perhaps so little. Thank you for your great questions and service to the community in the county. Councilmember COLAs, would you be willing to put up? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move the confirmation of the appointment of Will Floor as director of the King County Department of Community and Human Services. It's been moved and seconded that we move proposed motion 2018 0538 to confirm the appointment. Any final comments or questions? See any last market to call the role on that? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Bell City. Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Gossett. Councilmember Colwell. Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember McDermott. Councilmember of the Grove. Councilmember one right there. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the vote is ADA is no nos. Okay. We've given a unanimous do pass recommendation, will expedite that to Monday. And should we put that on consent or do folks. I think we put on consent. If someone wants to say a few more nice things about it, we can pull it off. Thank you very much. I look forward to working with you. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay. We'll turn now to item 12, which is the second appointment on today's agenda with respect to department directors. And that is the appointment of John Taylor as the first ever director of the Department of Local Services.