Contract city services — Management matters

Routine maintenance The King County Road Services Division (RSD) has service contracts with 11 cities (contract cities) to provide routine or basic maintenance. County and city staff meet regularly to develop and implement the annual work program and budget for the routine maintenance work that each city requests. Discretionary services City customers may also request additional work beyond routine or basic maintenance as needed. We call this work discretionary service. Examples of discretionary service requests are stream restoration projects and new signals. More than 30 cities and other agencies, including contract cities, request disrectionary services on an as-needed basis. The county has developed a database for cities to use in making and authorizing these requests. View a screen shot of what the discretionary request looks like.

• Routine maintenance • Discretionary services • Actual costs • Procedures • Agreements to authorize work • Our work groups • Contact us

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Actual costs The State Accountancy Act (RCW 43.09.210) requires that one public fund not support another without full compensation of costs. State law also says that the County Road Fund cannot be used for any other than a proper county road purpose (RCW 36.82.070 - Purpose for which road fund can be used). The RSD has determined that charging customer cities actual costs is the most accurate and equitable way to satisfy the state’s requirements.

Gabion Wall. [Enlarged 92KB .jpg]

We recognize, however, that customer cities must operate within a budget. To accommodate both state law and city budgets, the county works very closely with city staff to develop estimates that accurately reflect projected costs, to monitor work as it progresses, and to use change orders for documenting changes in scope as work progresses. See the procedures below, which describe in detail the steps the county uses to develop cost estimates and monitor costs as work proceeds.

Please see our document on sample labor rates (18KB .doc) to get a general idea of the county’s labor rates and how they are calculated.

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Procedures

In 2003, the county and contract cities put together procedures to guide our working relationship. They are intended to make this working relationship go as smoothly as possible – and are always open for discussion and improvement. View our procedures. (323KB .doc)

Agreements to authorize work

The county uses three types of agreements to provide services to cities. In all cases, the county is acting as a contractor for the customer city or other public agency and is working at the direction of city staff. The three agreements are:

• Interlocal Agreement (80KB .doc) — This agreement, authorized by RCW 39.34, is the primary tool for authorizing work the county does in contract cities and for other agencies. Once approved by the Metropolitan King County Council and the city’s council, the agreement allows customer cities to make and authorize work using a simple work request process. See what a work request looks like in our Discretionary Database.
• Interagency Agreement (49KB .doc) — In cases where a city doesn’t have an interlocal agreement with the county, the city can enter into an interagency agreement for one-time projects. This type of agreement doesn’t require the approval by the King County Council. In addition, RSD has developed a template to which a scope of work and cost estimate can be attached for quick and easy processing.
• Commitment to Pay Form (12KB .pdf) — RSD uses a Commitment to Pay form in cases where a city is requesting work is estimated to be less than $30,000. This form can be used for one-time projects only.

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Our work groups

RSD is a large organization with more than 600 employees. This means there is a large workforce available for small cities and public agencies to tap in to, and it can help to know a little about how we are organized. There are four major work groups in RSD. Customer cities may work with any or all of the work groups, and in many cases their work overlaps. View our organization chart. (33KB .pdf)

Our work groups are:

• Roads Maintenance Section
• Traffic Engineering and Maintenance Section
• Engineering Services Section
• Capital Improvement Program and Planning Section

Contact us

Mary Coltrane
Intergovernmental Relations Coordinator
King County Road Services Division
King Street Center
201 S. Jackson St.
Seattle , WA 98104
206-296-3724
206-296-0566 (fax)

Updated: Sept. 18, 2007