The King County Council has approved a contract to retain the consultant assisting the Council to establish the independent office overseeing King County's major capital construction projects

"I am pleased to implement a program I championed as chair of last year's Annual Budget Committee to improve the council's oversight of major capital projects," said Councilman Dow Constantine, chair of the Council's Capital Budget Committee. "This independent, outside oversight will help to ensure the completion of projects on time and on budget."

Aimed at controlling project overruns and unforeseen expansion of project scopes, schedules and budgets on capital projects, the Council created the Office of Capital Project Oversight as part of the 2007 budget and placed it within the Auditor's Office.

The company retained by the auditor, PMA Consultants, issued a report and a series of recommendations to the council's Capital Budget Committee earlier this year. The recommendations focused on the County's business practices related to capital project implementation on four priority projects: the Harborview Ninth and Jefferson Building, the Brightwater treatment plant, the King County Jail's Integrated Security Project and Jail Health Electronic Records project, and the Accountable Business Transformation project for integration of payroll, finance, human resource and budget management.

The motion adopted today by the Council authorizes the Council chair to sign a new contract with PMA to provide technical assistance for the next phase of the project, which is to implement the systems and processes established for the Office of Capital Project Oversight.