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Performance Audit Survey of Prosecuting Attorney's Office Civil Division

August 22, 2006

At the request of the Metropolitan King County Council, the King County Auditor’s Office conducted a performance audit survey of the Civil Division of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The Civil Division provides legal representation for the legislative and executive branches of county government. It also defends the county against claims and lawsuits brought by employees or outside parties.

Audit Highlights

We found that the majority of the Civil Division’s customers were very satisfied with the services they receive, and most customers reported that services had improved over the past few years. The Civil Division was unable to quantify or identify trends in performance. In addition, we found that data maintained by the Civil Division was insufficient to demonstrate the relationship between workload growth and cost growth. King County’s expenditures for outside counsel appeared to be high relative to other jurisdictions. Finally, the model used for billing customers for service was equitable, but its accuracy was dependent onincomplete time-keeping data provided by individual attorneys.

We made nine recommendations in the report with the intention of building upon the Civil Division’s efforts to improve data for:

  • Linking workload to expenditures,
  • Assessing the cost-effectiveness of outside counsel,
  • Improving the accuracy of the billing model, and
  • Improving the measurement of its performance.

The Civil Division of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office provides legal representation for the legislative and executive branches of county government. It also defends the county against claims and lawsuits brought by employees or outside parties.