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King County 911 System: Governance structure and plan needed to move forward
June 23, 2015
King County has been an early leader in updating and enhancing its 911 system. However, it has moved forward without a clear plan and it lacks an effective governance structure that includes emergency dispatch centers. These issues, along with the added costs to implement newer technology, have resulted in strained relationships and lack of agreement on a path forward. We recommend King County temporarily suspend work on Next Generation 911 until these governance and planning issues are resolved and a financial plan can be developed.
The Auditor has followed up on the report to evaluate implementation of our recommendations. See the most updated information below.
Of the 4 recommendations:
| DONE | 4 | Recommendation has been fully implemented. Auditor will no longer monitor. |
|---|---|---|
| PROGRESS | 0 | Recommendations are in progress or partially implemented. Auditor will continue to monitor. |
| OPEN | 0 | Recommendations remain unresolved. Auditor will continue to monitor. |
| CLOSED | 0 | Recommendations are no longer applicable. Auditor will no longer monitor. |
Summary
King County’s Enhanced 911 (E911) system provides emergency dispatch services to more than two million county residents. Telephone customers pay the more than $20 million cost for the system from monthly excise taxes. Personnel in the King County Enhanced 911 Program Office and 12 emergency dispatch centers – called Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) – manage and operate the system. King County and its PSAP partners are in the process of implementing Next Generation 911, a national initiative aimed at modernizing and improving the capabilities of the 911 system. The King County Council included a proviso in its 2015-2016 budget for the Auditor’s Office to conduct a financial and technical audit of King County’s 911 system.
King County has been a national leader in updating and enhancing its 911 system. However, it anticipates the program will run out of money within the next three years and it faces a number of other challenges in its current efforts to implement Next Generation 911 services. The lack of an effective governance structure that includes King County and its PSAP partners is the most serious of these challenges. Because of this, while solutions exist for many of the financial and technical challenges that we identify in our report, there is currently no formal means for King County and its partners to make decisions. We also found that King County has not consistently followed its own guidelines and process for managing information technology projects.
We recommend that King County temporarily suspend its implementation of Next Generation 911 until this governance issue can be resolved. In addition, we make recommendations to help King County and its partners move forward with implementation of Next Generation 911. Our recommendations focus on improving collaboration and planning as well as establishing a financial baseline that would allow stakeholders to agree on required spending and estimated revenue for the program.
Reports related to this audit
Click on the image(s) below to view the follow-up reports.
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September 6, 2016 |
June 14, 2018 |
Currently, there are no related reports to this project.
Audit team
Peter Heineccius, Laina Poon, Ben Thompson, and David Dean conducted this audit. If you have any questions or would like more information, please call the King County Auditor's Office at 206-477-1033 or contact us by email KCAO@kingcounty.gov.