Same Benchmarks, New Format:

The King County Benchmark Program is in its eighth year of publishing an annual report on progress in meeting the Countywide Planning goals. This year it comes to its readers in a new bi-monthly format. This format is experimental and will be evaluated in mid-2004. It will consist of five issues:

• Land Use
• Economics
• Affordable Housing
• Transportation
• Environment

Benchmarking as a Strategy for Change:

As one of the first and most durable efforts at monitoring outcomes in the public sector, the King County Benchmark Program demonstrates how measurement of broad quality-of-life outcomes can help determine if public policy and programs are making a difference. The purpose of King County’s Benchmark Program is to provide the King County Growth Management Council and other users with a method for:

• Evaluating the progress of the County and its jurisdiction in managing growth, and in
• Implementing the goals outlined in the Countywide Planning Policies

It is a strategy for a change: it alerts us to what we are doing well, and to where we need to do better. As such, it is intimately connected to both the policy goals that it monitors, and to the strategic planning, programs, and services that are intended to implement those goals. The diagram below is one way of envisioning the interplay of policy, program implementation and outcome monitoring.

High-level indicators such as the 45 Benchmark Indicators, selected in 1995 for monitoring by the GMPC, are often affected by external factors outside the control of government agencies. Some, such as the economic indicators, are less responsive to local government strategies than others, such as land use indicators. But good policy implies implementation, and its intention is to create real, long-term improvement in the quality of our lives in King County. Tracking these indicators lets policy-makers know if that improvement is happening.