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Thurston County says monitoring found no intentional malfeasance in PIPE contract; county and nonprofit agreed to terminate contract
Summary
County managers described fiscal monitoring of Partners in Prevention Education (PIPE) rental-assistance work, noted corrective actions and repayments, and said PIPE and the county mutually ended the contract after staff determined termination appropriate; county will not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
Thurston County officials told the Board of County Commissioners at an agenda-setting work session that monitoring of Partners in Prevention Education (PIPE), a nonprofit that ran an eviction-prevention rental-assistance program, found no evidence of intentional malfeasance but did identify fiscal-management weaknesses and incomplete documentation.
County Manager Leonard Hernandez summarized a timeline of oversight dating back to October 2023, when Public Health and Social Services and the Office of Housing and Homeless Prevention began monitoring PIPE’s Eviction Prevention Rent Assistance program. Hernandez said Public Health staff later requested formal fiscal monitoring, and a fiscal monitoring report issued in February 2024 included corrective actions for PIPE.
The county manager said PIPE made final payments identified by the corrective-action plan in August 2024. He also said the State Auditor’s Office issued a fiscal report in October 2024 that reviewed PIPE’s eviction-prevention rental-assistance invoices and “no deficiencies of material weakness were identified,” according to the county summary. Hernandez said that after further monitoring, county staff determined it would be best to terminate the contract, and in April 2025 PIPE and Public Health “mutually agreed to terminate the contract.”
Hernandez told commissioners the county “found no evidence of intentional malfeasance” but had identified “management practices, including lack of internal controls and incomplete documentation of records.” He said a corrective-action plan was prepared by Public Health and that related internal documents are available as public records; the county plans to provide more detail to commissioners in a future executive-session briefing.
On questions about members of the public naming staff during public comment and whether the county could limit such remarks when legal proceedings are involved, county staff said they would consult with the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. A county official said the county generally will not speak about ongoing legal proceedings.
Commissioners and staff emphasized they did not intend the county’s summary to disparage PIPE as an organization; county staff described PIPE as responsive to the corrective-action process and noted the termination was an agreed outcome when staff concluded it was the appropriate step.
The work session also included brief procedural items and a scheduled closed session concerning a quasi-judicial appeal of a hearings examiner decision under the cited state statute; no substantive deliberations from that closed session were disclosed in the public portion of the meeting.
County officials said they will present additional documentation and details to the commissioners in a later session, including the fiscal-monitoring report and the corrective-action plan.
