(The Center Square) – A critical audit of the King County Regional Homeless Authority has put CEO Kelly Kinnison in the spotlight, showing that she distanced herself from the review as major oversight problems were discovered and millions of dollars in funds were unable to be accounted for.
The audit found a lack of financial controls, which contributed to the authority’s inability to track millions of dollars in funds. Also, Kinnison didn’t show up for most of the twice-weekly KCRHA board meetings held concurrently with the audit period, said fraud investigator Mike Nurse.
“For a meeting whose purpose was solely to inform executive leadership on issues in progress, it surprised us from an ownership oversight and urgency perspective that she did not participate in these meetings,” Nurse told the authority board Friday night.
Kinnison, a former federal official with expertise in homeless programs, became the CEO in June 2024, the fifth top leader in five years for the organization that distributes funding to nonprofit organizations that provide emergency and permanent housing for the homeless.
Kinnison did respond to requests for comment from the Center Square after Friday’s meeting. The audit was released on April 22.
Kinnison told the board on Friday that she’s passionate about helping the homeless and blamed oversight failures from the agency’s early years when it first became operational in mid-2021.
The audit covered the period from mid-2021 to June 2025, including a one-year period when Kinnison was in charge.
Nurse said in the presentation to the authority’s board that the audit by Bellevue-based Clark Nuber P.S., which started in August 2025, was delayed by almost four months.
He said the delay was because the authority didn’t respond to requests for information.
“The delay resulted in having to amend the timeline and the contract and also increase the engagement budget by over $150,000 from the original estimate because of the problems we were encountering,” he said.
The city of Seattle, which gives the authority more than $100 million a year, or 58% of its budget, paid $600,000 for the audit.
Nurse said the information presented by the staff was sometimes incomplete or did not match what the auditor had requested. He said the flow of information did improve in 2026.
The auditor found a missing paper trail for $13 million in funds, and concluded that $8 million of those funds will likely never be recovered.
While the auditor did not find evidence of outright fraud, Clark Nuber P.S. could not determine whether the missing funds were used to provide services to the homeless.
The auditing firm also found that the homeless authority had a $44 million shortfall, attributed to King County and the city of Seattle not reimbursing the organization until it actually gives money to organizations to build housing or provide temporary shelter.
While Seattle and King County were responsible for covering the bulk of these costs, the auditor found the agency still faced a $4 million gap connected to daily operations.
This lack of financial clarity for the organization has prompted a pair of local legislators to demand its immediate shutdown.
Seattle Councilwoman Maritza Rivera last week characterized the group as fundamentally broken, while King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski argued that leadership must finally pull the plug on what he labeled an unsuccessful trial run.
Both legislators said they will introduce resolutions calling for the organization’s dissolution.
But Authority board members, including Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, have stopped short of calling for the agency’s end.
Wilson’s current program to create 4,000 units of housing for the homeless over the next four years is being funded by more than $17 million in city funding, without the regional homeless authority’s input.
Wilson said the city is speeding up the process to create 500 new units over the next several months. She said the authority can take more than a year on a single project.
