Budget & Performance Measurement

As performance measurement at King County develops and evolves, so does the ability to make more informed budget decisions. King County requires all Executive departments to develop and submit annual business plans to help facilitate that discussion. Under the new Performance and Accountability Ordinance (Ordinance 16202) all departments and agencies are now required to submit business plans. Business plans are designed to show the relationship between a department's vision, mission, goals, strategies, and performance.

In 2008, the Office of Management and Budget, working with the Performance Management Director, made significant changes to the business plan requirements. The new business plan requirements include completing a Program Assessment. The Program Assessment is used to collect information at the program level and address a variety of issues: describe core services, legal mandates, interagency relationships, and a suite of performance measures to describe the program.

Performance measures are used in the business plans to:

  • Show through measures: how much work was done (output measures), the effectiveness of programs, program efficiency, and service quality;
  • Clearly identify targets that represent what performance is expected with current (or proposed) funding levels;
  • Connect, where possible, funding proposals with new levels of performance, new targets, or new measures to demonstrate program results.

Public Performance Reporting

The county places a high value on reporting to the public and creating reports that reflect public interest and meet public needs. Asa result, the formats by which we provide reports is continuously evolving. This year marks the debut of the county's first 4-page performance scorecard in combination with the AIMs High Web site. The short scorecard and the detailed Web site are designed in combination to meet the needs of the general public, interest groups, and multiple stakeholders.

For the past several years as part of the Executive's Proposed Budget, OMB has produced a hard-copy published report summarizing the performance results of the Executive departments called King County AIMs High: Annual Indicators and Measures. The county's 2006 and 2007 AIMs High reports were recipients of the Association of Government Accountants' prestigious "Certificate of Excellence in Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting" for meeting all of the reporting guidelines (124KB PDF) for effective communication. These guidelines are based on suggested criteria identified by the Government Accounting Standards Board.

We welcome your feedback in making our reports more relevant, useful, and easy to use.

To provide feedback on our reports or to request a hard copy of any report, please contact Michael Jacobson, Performance Management Director, at (206) 263-9622 or email Michael.jacobson@kingcounty.gov.

Previous years' reports are here:

Full budget documents and more information about OMB are available on the OMB website.