Public Health, Seattle & King County

When I became the Chief Financial Officer for Public Health, Seattle & King County, the agency was going through several transitions. I was the fifth CFO the agency had hired in five years. In addition, the agency was experiencing significant state and federal budget cuts. At the same time, the agency was preparing for health care reform, which meant changes to staff, systems, outreach – all areas of our work.  And perhaps most challenging was the nature of the Public Health budget. Like all large Public Health agencies, the budget was made up of revenue from hundreds of sources, and most projects were funded through a combination of these funding sources. Each had its own restrictions and auditing requirements. As a result of this complexity, the Public Health budget was developed and managed through a different finance system than the rest of the county budget. This made it challenging to monitor and plan finances for the agency. During my time as CFO, the county transitioned to new financial systems, and the Public Health budget and financial management systems were incorporated into the countywide system for the first time.

Naturally, all of these changes resulted in a high level of stress for my staff and the finance teams in other departments who indirectly reported to me. In addition, the staff was wary of yet another new CFO. I knew that in order to accomplish all that needed to be done, it was critical to start by building trust with my team, identifying areas in need of improvement, and inspiring staff to work together towards achieving the department’s goals.

I met with each member of my team, to hear about their backgrounds, strengths, and challenges. Some were new to the department, but most had been there a while, up to 50 years. This presented another set of challenges – building trust between people who had been there a long time and were comfortable in their ways of doing things, and new staff with new ideas and expectations.

After understanding my team and identifying our challenges, I spent much of my time motivating and leading. I inspired staff to think critically about transparency and accountability and encouraged the agency’s leadership team to implement department-wide internal controls and to proactively plan for long-term financial stability. 

The finance team had been largely transaction-based and I led them through the process of becoming more analytical, more focused on critical thinking and being responsive rather than reactive. This required identifying the skills needed in the department, and then training and hiring staff to meet the needs of the changing environment. 

As a result of focusing on culture change, listening to staff but also holding them accountable, and working as a team on common, clearly defined goals, the agency become more efficient and accountable. We had finding-free audits, we increased our revenue from grants, and we transitioned to the new financial management system. This allowed anyone to be able to easily track and monitor the agency’s $400M budget. Staff had pride in their work, were excited about change rather than fearful and a culture of transparency, accountability and trust became the norm.