Executive policies are approved by the King County Executive after completion of a 10-day review and comment process. Adoption of public rules by a department other than a county board, commission, committee or other body is accomplished and approved by the department's director, County Sheriff or County Assessor, for his or her respective department, signing the proposed rule. Before any policy is adopted, draft rules are distributed for review and comment to representatives of each county department for at least 45 days.

In addition to this draft rule review, the public, including members of each unincorporated area council, the Clerk of the Council, and each of the county council is given the opportunity to comment on all proposed public rules. The public may send written comment to the county agency responsible for writing the public rules, and/or provide verbal comment at a scheduled public hearing, if held.

Approved policies and public rules are published on this Web site. A master list is provided for each category: public rules, executive orders and policies. The pages are categorized by code number, issuing county agency and active date.

Electronic copies of the signed documents are available in Adobe Acrobat format (PDF). You will need a PDF reader to view these documents.

To download the free software, visit King County's PDF help page.