King County Auditor's Report on PSERN

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RuinsEveryonesFun

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Back in late October, the Bellevue Reporter ran an article about PSERN seeking a levy lid lift for $225 million to finance the new system (article: County to seek levy lid lift to fund regional radio system replacement - Bellevue Reporter). Unknown to most, the King County Auditor's Office put out a report on PSERN back in early September. The summary states "The radio replacement project is an expensive, complex, and high-risk effort that will require significant coordination among project partners and would benefit from additional clarity and comprehensiveness in its identification and analysis of options." (Full text here: http://www.kingcounty.gov/~/media/o...ts/2014Documents/RadioMgmtLtrFINAL.ashx?la=en)

I hate to be the person pointing out flaws, but there are still serious issues that PSERN is not addressing that should be addressed before receiving a huge levy lid lift.
 
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RuinsEveryonesFun said:
The summary states "The radio replacement project is an expensive, complex, and high-risk effort that will require significant coordination among project partners and would benefit from additional clarity and comprehensiveness in its identification and analysis of options."
Click to expand...

Not sure what the point of your post is... but this is hardly breaking news...
 
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RuinsEveryonesFun

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Wilrobnson said:
I enjoy Huffington Post style forum content and drive by linkage as the next guy...you know, one-sided?

Here's the King County Exec's response to that report:
http://bit.ly/1ulaQfM
Click to expand...

If you've read the report, you'd notice that the King County Exec's response is at the end of the attached report, and the Auditor then makes comments on that response. The Exec states that they do not believe they need to further analyze risk, but the Auditor disagrees:

"The replacement of King County’s emergency radio network is a critical and high-risk project.
Effective risk management plans identify potential problems that could cause trouble for
projects, analyze how likely they are to occur, take action to prevent avoidable risks, and
minimize unavoidable risks.

The County Executive did not concur with our recommendation to ensure the quality of the
Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network (PSERN) risk management plan. The County Executive
stated that the current risk management plan is sufficient for this large, expensive project.

While we reviewed and acknowledged PSERN’s current plan in our management letter, we
found significant gaps. The project team should enhance the current PSERN risk management
plan using tools and templates developed by the county to manage risk on large capital projects,
namely, Capital Project Management Work Group guidance specific to rigorous risk
management planning. One specific example of a risk that should be more fully developed and
planned for is the risk of ballot failure. While the project team identifies this risk in its plan, there
is not a contingency plan for dealing with this risk. The plan simply states, “If funding cannot be
secured through a voter passed initiative, the current system would need to be maintained for a
longer period and methods to do this will need to be developed.” Given the importance of this
project to King County, its partners, and residents, it is vital that the project team identify and
plan for potential risks. Failure to implement our recommendation exacerbates the risks facing
this project and enhances the negative impacts these risks pose to project success."
 
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