Usually when government agencies get in trouble with money, it revolves around waste. Or ballooning costs. Sometimes it’s outright fraud.

But how should we feel about public monies just not being spent — to the tune of a quarter-billion dollars?

One local elected official says this is the unsung scandal emerging right now with the beleaguered King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

“The more we look into this, the more we see an operational disaster that we really need to get to the bottom of,” says Rod Dembowski, chair of King County’s budget committee.

For much of this year, accountants and consultants have been reconciling the finances of the countywide agency launched in 2021 to reduce homelessness. The topline news is that it’s in the red , and likely will have to be bailed out by taxpayers for about $17 million.

But what has been uncovered about the nature of that deficit is astonishing.…