Investigation uncovers $800K in payments to King County employee's family members

A King County employee who ran a youth education and anti-racism program oversaw more than $800,000 in grant payments to five family members as red flags passed unnoticed for years, according to county records.

The program manager, Yolanda McGhee, also reportedly pressured three contractors to hire or subcontract with her daughter, a recent county investigation found.

County officials first learned about one of McGhee's potential conflicts of interest six years ago. The county didn't launch its investigation until last year, amid a high-profile audit.

How McGhee slipped through the cracks points to deeper faults at the county government, which has slowly dismantled ethics safeguards over the past three decades, The Seattle Times found. Many of the county's ethics rules are vague, and its regulatory duties are splintered among agencies that, in McGhee's case, weren't required to investigate or share relevant information. Even when officials had the discretion to take action, they didn't.

McGhee, who ran a $10 million program, didn't tell her supervisors that several family members were getting paid through contracts she oversaw, the county investigation found. But there were signs. Officials got a complaint about McGhee in 2020 that they didn't investigate. Later, managers twice discovered payments had trickled down to two different relatives of McGhee. They still didn't delve deeper or reassign her work.

It took years before the county placed McGhee on leave and hired an independent investigator, who produced a report in December. The investigation hasn't been disclosed publicly; The Times obtained a copy of the report through an open records request.

All told, companies owned by McGhee's daughter, two brothers, a cousin and a sister-in-law collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds over five years, according to the investigation. McGhee's family members have not been accused of wrongdoing.

Records reviewed by the investigator indicate McGhee's relatives did work under their contracts, but the "investigation did not determine whether all the funds issued to Yolanda McGhee's relatives were used in accordance with the terms of the contracts and subcontracts. Most of these relatives refused to be interviewed," the report reads.

McGhee was fired in January for "serious violations" of county policies, including "the failure to disclose and appropriately manage multiple conflicts of interest," according to the county.

McGhee, who was hired by the county in 2017, disputed the "characterization of events presented in the investigation materials and any implication that I engaged in improper conduct," she wrote in an email to The Times. "I have consistently taken ethics, disclosure, and financial reporting obligations seriously and made appropriate disclosures to the extent required."

She declined to be interviewed or answer detailed questions because she's contesting her termination through her labor union, McGhee wrote in the email last week.

The county's probe revealed that McGhee's family involvement went "far beyond" what officials had learned about years earlier, according to a statement from the Department of Community and Human Services, where McGhee's youth training and mentorship program resided.

A county audit last year found the department has put public funds at risk because of significant oversight lapses as its budget ballooned. DCHS distributed $1.8 billion in grants in 2023-24, nearly double the amount awarded six years earlier. McGhee's program was among four sampled by the auditor for scrutiny. Last month, The Times detailed how department officials overlooked signs suggesting contractors were misusing tax dollars.

‘Glaring conflict of interest'

The first complaint about McGhee came in 2020. It was an email to multiple county employees, including in the public health department, which at the time was home to her program.

The sender - an ex-employee of a county contractor - complained about being unjustly fired and accused McGhee of a "glaring conflict of interest" involving her daughter's work, according to the recent investigation.

One of the health department's top officials, who had seen the email, said at the time that staff would look into it, the report notes.

No one in the department followed up. It was a chaotic period for the health department, during the height of the pandemic, staff later told the independent investigator.

The department isn't required by policy to respond to conflict of interest complaints or refer them to investigators. Still, health officials generally look into complaints and consider referring them to other agencies as a matter of practice, said James Apa, spokesperson for the department. This situation wasn't consistent with the department's practices, he added.

After the audit, the department started crafting "escalation procedures for staff when potential ethics violations and conflicts of interests arise," Apa said. The findings in the McGhee report reinforce the importance of why we're doing it."

Another payment to a brother

In 2022, McGhee's initiative moved from the county's public health department to DCHS. Called Liberation and Healing from Systemic Racism, also known as Liberated Village, the program distributed more than $10 million through 19 separate contracts from 2022 to 2025.

During that period, county officials were again made aware that money from McGhee's program might be flowing to her daughter, according to county records.

McGhee hadn't disclosed any possible conflicts of interest to her supervisors before they independently learned about one in 2023. Employees are explicitly required by the county to tell their managers about possible conflicts.

DCHS leaders brought their concern to King County's Ethics Program, which trains and advises employees. All the officials thought just one contractor was linked to McGhee's daughter, who did not live with McGhee. And McGhee told them she had no influence on her daughter's hiring, according to the county investigation.

Based on that information, the report said, the Ethics Program administrator decided it wasn't a conflict of interest.

The county doesn't specifically prohibit its workers from directly managing contractors that employ or subcontract with the workers' family members.

Although McGhee hadn't told her supervisors, she had noted her daughter's link to Liberated Village on a mandatory disclosure form that went to the Ethics Program. She wrote that her daughter worked with not one but "various" contractors as a consultant, according to the investigation.

The Ethics Program is supposed to review forms that disclose potential conflicts, contact the employee and gather more information. But the ethics administrator has "no notes or recollection of meeting with McGhee or discussing the disclosure with her" at the time, according to a spokesperson for the department that includes the Ethics Program.

McGhee kept disclosing her daughter's work on her annual forms. And, technically, aside from her daughter, none of the other family members fall into the county's definition of "immediate family" that would need to be disclosed.

"In my 32 years in the state auditor's office, it always irritated me how nebulous county ethics regulations can be," said Jan Jutte, a former high-ranking auditor who also served on the state's Executive Ethics Board.

A recent report by the King County auditor and ombuds said the ethics code lacks clear guidance and creates "loopholes for misuse."

A month after the Ethics Program chimed in, the same DCHS officials discovered a new link, the investigation found. McGhee had submitted a bill to pay one of her brothers $9,999 for work - a dollar below a threshold that would typically trigger a competitive bidding process. Officials immediately discussed it with McGhee and then canceled the payment. McGhee said she didn't realize she needed to disclose it, according to the report.

But DCHS officials didn't bring it back to the Ethics Program this time. They "thought the crisis had been averted," one told the county investigator. They still didn't reassign McGhee's work.

They should have, said Metropolitan King County Council member Rod Dembowski, who has crafted ethics-related legislation in the past. "If and when managers learned of this, the employee should have been removed from this work," he said.

DCHS will update its policies relating to potential conflicts of interest, the agency statement said. "DCHS recognizes the seriousness of this matter and our duty in upholding the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and financial stewardship of taxpayer dollars."

Ultimately, McGhee, through her racial equity initiative, directly managed county contracts with eight organizations that then paid companies owned by her daughter, two of her brothers, a cousin and a sister-in-law, records show.

Three contractors told the investigator McGhee pressured them to hire her daughter's company. When interviewed by the investigator, McGhee "adamantly denied pressuring or suggesting anyone hire" her daughter, according to the report.

Two contractors claimed McGhee also pressured an organization to fire two Latino consultants because the program was meant to "uplift black and brown scholars," according to the report. One told the investigator that McGhee said on a program call, "They look too white." The report didn't note McGhee's response to the allegation, and she declined to answer detailed questions from The Times.

Gaps in financial reports

Some organizations overseen by McGhee filed vague progress reports, making it difficult to know exactly how they spent tax dollars or served youth, The Times found after reviewing county contracts, reports and emails. These problems went unnoticed by DCHS leaders for years, records show.

On the other hand, many contractors in McGhee's program filed more detailed records describing mentorship and educational experiences in a variety of fields, such as science and the arts.

DCHS officials, in a written response to questions from The Times, said "services were delivered" and "young people experienced positive outcomes" in the Liberated Village program. However, department officials acknowledged there were "gaps in documentation" and they "cannot definitively state all of the services delivered."

"This is not up to our standards, and we take responsibility," the response said.

One contractor, Educate to Liberate Consulting, received about $660,000 before the county noted invoices that were incomplete, inaccurate or didn't "provide any details about the actual work done," according to county emails.

Educate to Liberate paid businesses owned by two members of McGhee's family about $146,000, according to the investigation.

In an email to The Times, Nikum Pon - Educate to Liberate's chief research and evaluation strategist - wrote that he conducted training, did research and data analysis and produced reports, as outlined in his contract. Pon, who declined an interview request, wrote that he selected subcontractors based on "programmatic needs, capacity, and ability to deliver services" and not familial relationships. Educate to Liberate is in a dispute with the county over unresolved payments.

Pon "outright refused to be interviewed" by the county investigator, according to the report.

Educate to Liberate is one of 19 contractors the county auditor referred for an ongoing investigation into potential improper payments. Five of the 19 organizations are linked to McGhee's family members, but the auditor's referral isn't related to connections between any county employees and family.

Weakened ethics safeguards

McGhee's case highlights several vulnerabilities within the county, which manages employee misconduct differently than other local or state governments.

King County splits its ethics oversight responsibilities between an internal Ethics Program, an appointed Board of Ethics and an independent ombuds. The county took away the ethics board's authority to investigate in the 1990s, giving only the ombuds investigative power.

Seattle, on the other hand, has a single, independent ethics agency that handles training, complaints and investigations. The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission has the equivalent of nearly two full-time positions dedicated to ethics.

The commission's centralized and wide-ranging authority is "critically important," said Wayne Barnett, the executive director. "We wouldn't be the agency we are if we didn't investigate complaints."

King County's ethics bodies share certain information but in key situations aren't required to collaborate. For example, there's no requirement that county staff - including ethics officials - refer complaints or suspected misconduct to the ombuds.

The "gold standard" is a unified, independent ethics body, said Davina Hurt, government ethics director at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Short of that, ethics officials need to collaborate. That appears to be missing from King County's fragmented oversight system, she added.

"When things straddle different bodies of review, they're at risk of just being dropped, and I think that's exactly what happened here," Hurt said about the county's handling of McGhee.

In the past, the Ethics Program had more resources and collaborated with other regulators, said Catherine Clemens, who ran the program for about 15 years before retiring in 2011.

McGhee's failure to tell her supervisors about her daughter's work should have triggered more scrutiny and been passed up the chain, Clemens added. "If I saw something like that, that would be an alarm bell to me."

In 2009, the Ethics program had an annual budget of more than $200,000, a full-time director and a part-time assistant, according to a detailed report that year. Clemens coordinated routine in-person ethics training, including teaching supervisors how to spot and handle potential conflicts.

In 2015, the county spent just $9,000 on the Ethics program and dedicated only 120 staff hours to it, county records show.

Today, the program has only one employee, who works on ethics part time. Its budget isn't tracked in a way that allows for a direct comparison, according to the county.

The Ethics program organized 79 ethics training presentations in 2009. So far this year, it has put on two presentations, according to the county. Last year, the program held none.

"When you stop talking about it," Clemens said of ethics code, "when it's no longer an integral part of how we function - well, then you end up with the way the government looks today."

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This story was originally published April 26, 2026 at 6:54 AM.