Homeless case mistake leads to new oversight of county social services department

Pierce County Council is apparently increasing oversight of the Department of Human Services after a misstep that nearly led to the collapse of the system that serves as the county’s “gateway” response to homelessness.

In early September, Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier was forced to declare a state of emergency to keep the Coordinated Entry system operational.

The county’s contracts with Coordinated Entry organizations were set to expire at the end of August without being extended, raising questions about how the Department of Human Services could have allowed this to happen.

The council approved a supplemental summer budget Sept. 10 that repurposes funds for homeless services. Before the vote, it changed a long-standing budget rule that exempted Human Services from notifying the council before entering into a service contract.

Council member Marty Campbell proposed an amendment.

“It’s frustrating because we kept asking where we were with many of these Human Services contracts,” Campbell said, introducing the amendment during a Sept. 10 meeting. “We weren’t getting the feedback or answers that we wanted, and then we found out that not only was there a problem, but it had reached the level of a major emergency.”

Paul Bocchi, a legislative analyst for the council, told the council that a rule had existed “for over a decade” requiring the executive branch to notify the council of any contract or contract change worth more than $250,000 at least 21 days before signing it. Human Services was exempt from the rule, likely because of the department’s large number of contracts.

“The Department of Social Services has a lot of contracts, as you well know, it engages in a lot of different activities, it receives a lot of outside money from the federal and state governments,” Bocchi told the council on Sept. 10.

“I don’t know why we didn’t think the Department of Social Services should have the same responsibility as the Department of Public Works that every other department in the county has,” Campbell said.

He said his amendment would create a “level playing field” and allow the council to track deals and be aware of delays in concluding them, such as those experienced with Coordinated Entry.

The Council approved a performance audit to assess the “efficiency and effectiveness” of the contracting process in the Social Services Department in November 2023, with completion scheduled for late 2024.

The amendment also mandates training of Human Services staff on contracting and procurement procedures and regulations. It also appropriates $150,000 for Human Services to implement recommendations from an upcoming audit.

“When something like this happens in any organization and there’s a major breakdown in procedures, you have to draw a line under the bus and say, ‘Let’s make sure we know what happened’ and what we need to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Campbell told the council.

Council member Ryan Mello said the council received feedback from organizations that contract with Human Services to provide services to homeless people and that have “repeatedly” encountered difficulties in obtaining contracts for their work.

“Basic contracting is taking months, if not more than a year,” he told The News Tribune. “That’s unacceptable.”

During the Sept. 10 meeting, council member Dave Morell asked if requiring council to be notified of social services agreements would further delay the process.

“It’s really about whether they’ve planned their operations,” said council chief of staff Julie Murray. “It’s really about how Human Services is actually planning their operations. We’ve seen some grants that have been awarded that have come to council the same day that the service was expected to be delivered.”

Council member Amy Cruver was the only council member to oppose the amendment. During the meeting, she called the new Human Services requirements “micromanagement.”

“I wish the department was here to clarify some things,” Cruver said Sept. 10. “Because I’m sitting here wondering if they’re particularly overburdened. Because we’ve had a huge increase in the Department of Social Services over the last three years with new taxes at the federal and local levels.”

Social Services Director Heather Moss told The News Tribune the department is not overwhelmed and is not trying to do more work than its capacity allows.

“While our budget has grown in size and complexity over the past 5 years, we have increased our program and administrative staff to accommodate the increased workload,” Moss said in an email to The News Tribune.

Moss blamed the expiration of the coordinated entry agreements on an “administrative oversight.”

“The competitive procurement we conducted during the pandemic did not have sufficient authority to authorize a contract renewal after the pandemic ended. It was a simple oversight that staff did not notice this limitation, and our finance department discovered it late enough that our only option was to establish a short-term, narrow emergency declaration to allow us to write 4-month contracts that would maintain a coordinated go-live while we conduct the new procurement,” she said in an email to The News Tribune.