King County wins national honors for creative and innovative programs

National Association of Counties cites three outstanding King County programs

King County's campaigns to improve employee health, bring sustainably produced items to the marketplace and promote natural yard care have been recognized as among the best in the nation.

The National Association of Counties (NACo) honored King County with achievement awards for its Health Reform Initiative, EcoConsumer Campaign and Northwest Natural Yards Days Program.

The NACo Achievement Awards recognized King County for creative and innovative program development and implementation, efficient administrative management of county agencies and their ability to meet the needs of local citizens.

"This national recognition shows us that we're on the right track with our initiatives," said King County Executive Ron Sims.
Case in point: King County's Health Reform Initiative, a groundbreaking program that led to a partnership between government and its employees.

"Like employers across the nation, King County faces ongoing double-digit increases in health care costs for the foreseeable future," Sims said. "Rather than the traditional fixes of slashing health care benefits or raising out-of-pockets payments, we created the Health Reform Initiative, which aims to prevent the kind of conditions that are costly to treat by giving employees the tools they need to get healthy and effectively manage chronic diseases," he said.

Under the new voluntary health care plan, employee benefit coverage remains the same, but out-of-pocket expense levels go down as the individual's level of participation in wellness activities goes up.

More than 90 percent of benefits eligible employees and their partners chose to participate in the voluntary program, far exceeding the county's expectations.

Now in its ninth year, Northwest Natural Yard Days encourages residents of King County and the Puget Sound region to purchase environmentally preferable yard care products and to practice natural yard care.

King County, the City of Seattle and 24 other agency partners team with local retailers to increase the sales of natural yard care products to local residents and inform them about the benefits of natural yard care practices.

The King County Solid Waste Division's EcoConsumer Campaign was launched in 2005 to demonstrate to county residents how they can help protect the environment while also saving time and money.

The campaign emphasizes waste prevention and other related practices such as energy conservation. This project also creatively uses the Internet to help the public make better purchasing choices.

"While the three campaigns that received recognition are quite different in subject matter, they all stem from our overarching desire to be a more thoughtful and efficient provider of services for King County residents and employees," Sims said.

More information on King County programs is available at http://www.metrokc.gov/; more information on NACo is available at http://www.naco.org/.