2023-2024

F1: The current software system used by food inspectors is functionally inadequate and an impediment to meeting the EHD mission of ensuring restaurant safety.

F2: Due to a variety of factors, EHD does not currently employ enough inspectors to realistically meet all of its many obligations.

F3: Salaries for food inspectors appear to be low, given the required educational background and compared to average salaries in similarly situated counties.

F4: Food inspectors have an overly broad “inventory” of facilities, and the requirement to inspect facilities other than food establishments dilutes the effort to ensure food safety. 18

F5: Permit, food inspection, and reinspection fees appear to be low when compared to similar inspection fees charged elsewhere, including those charged by the City of Fresno and other Fresno County departments.

F6: Subjectivity and inconsistency in inspections are an impediment to the mission of ensuring food safety within Fresno County.

F7: Code violation enforcement and fine collection appear to be inconsistent and based on the subjectivity of individual inspectors and supervisors.

F8: EHD’s website is difficult to navigate, not always current, and is a barrier to consumers.

F9: EHD appears to be without a policy for its Food Inspectors on the standard use of County automobiles for travel to inspect food facilities.

F1: The District may have violated Government Code Section 26909 in that no annual audit has been submitted since 2019.

F2: The District has neglected to prepare an annual budget.

F3: The District appears to not have followed generally accepted accounting practices in maintaining a complete set of financial records.

F4: The District has made its annual compensation available for review as required by CalPERS through August 2023.

F5: The District may have violated Government Code section 53087.8 in that it does not have a website. 13

F6: The District appears to have violated the Brown Act in that notice of Board of Director meetings and agendas are not posted 72 hours prior to the Board of Trustees meetings.

F7: The landscaping and maintenance of the cemeteries have been negatively affected by the decrease in the number of employees.

F8: The recent non-functional wells at Clovis and Red Bank cemeteries contributed significantly to the landscaping problems at those cemeteries.

F2019: California Government Code section 26909 requires, with limited exceptions, special districts to conduct annual independent audits. The District does not have an exception. The District has not had an audit prepared since 2019. A number of issues have caused this failure. First, the former accounting firm was disqualified from practicing which kept the District’s financial records from being prepared according to general accounting practices and prompted a request from the County for a re-audit of 8 2019. Second, personnel changes resulted in a complete set of financial records no longer being prepared. The District is in the process of having financial records prepared from 2018 through 2023 by a qualified accounting firm. It is also computerizing its record keeping operations, which include a nightly back-up, to facilitate the filing of future reports. The District participates in California Public Employees’ Retirement System and, therefore, is required to make its pay schedule publicly available. The District made the annual compensation available to the public in August 2023 through the County of Fresno. Website Government Code section 53087.8 states that as of January 1, 2020, every special district “shall maintain an internet website…” The district does not currently have a website. A website designer had been engaged to develop a website but due to administrative and personnel issues within the District, that work was never completed. A new website designer was subsequently engaged and is currently working on developing a website. The Brown Act As a local government body, the District is subject to the Brown Act. The Brown Act (California Government Code section 54950, et seq.) was passed in order to ensure the public that government actions and deliberations are conducted openly and that the public may retain some control over government actions. Under the Brown Act, meetings of local government bodies must be opened to the public and public comments, and the public be given 72 hours advance notice (special meetings have a 24 hours advance notice requirement). The notice must include the time and place of the meeting and the agenda. In 2019, the Brown Act was amended to require local agencies with a website to include a prominent and direct link on its home page to the governing board’s meeting agendas and notice of meetings (Government Code section 54954.2). The Board of Trustees has their monthly meetings, which are open to the public, on the third Tuesday of each month. Discussion of planned actions and deliberations take place. Therefore, a notice of the meeting or the agenda of that meeting must be posted 72 hours prior to the meeting, which is the prior Saturday . The district posts the agenda in the front office window. See picture below showing where the notice gets posted. The Grand Jury visited the Clovis Cemetery on Saturday September 17, 2023, which was less than 72 hours prior to the September 19, 2023, meeting of the Board of Trustees. We also visited the cemetery on February 9, 2024, which was 72 hours prior to the February 13, 2024, meeting of the Board of Trustees. No notice of the upcoming meeting was posted in the office window or on the conference room door at the time of either visit. Operations Landscape and Interments At one time the District employed 18 people in the Landscape and Operations Department (the Department), which included a full time dedicated mechanic and three full time dedicated certified sprayers. The Department currently employs nine people, including the manager and assistant manager. There is no dedicated full time mechanic or dedicated full time certified sprayer. Only one employee is certified to spray. In addition, the Department hires temporary employees as groundskeepers on a regular basis in the spring and summer months. The Department is responsible for maintaining the burial grounds of all five cemeteries within the District, preparing sites for burials, and any other maintenance required outside of the office doors. The main priorities of the Department are the opening and closing of gravesites and the setting up for burial services. Maintenance of the grounds and setting of the headstones are secondary. All of the Department employees can handle all of the varied assignments and tasks, except for the mechanical and spraying tasks. The opening and closing of gravesites and setting up the burial site for services takes two of the Department’s employees. There are an average of 12 burials a week which is one or two a day. Since at least two to four employees spend about half their day on burials, they are not available during that time to do landscape and maintenance work. This effectively leaves five employees to do maintenance work on the five cemeteries. The Department maintains a log of work that has been completed and work needing to be done. There is no maintenance schedule. Each cemetery receives landscaping services each week. The cemeteries with grass are seeded and fertilized twice each year, in February and at the end of the September, and are watered daily during the growing season. All landscaping work is done around burial services. The Department does some road repairs on occasion. Water Well Failures Within the past year and a half, the water wells in Clovis and Red Bank cemeteries broke down. The landscaping of both cemeteries suffered the results with dried and dying grass. The Clovis Cemetery well was 22 years old when the motor burned out (the average lifespan of a well is 20-25 years) and broke the pump. The pump was submersible so they did not know what caused the failure until after the pump was retrieved. A new motor was purchased and installed. The Red Bank well, which was 35 years old and 80 feet deep, went dry. A new well has been drilled to 300 feet. CONCLUSION The District was already aware of most issues of concern addressed in this report regarding administration and operation of the District. The County of Fresno had already contacted the District regarding the audits that had not been submitted, and a CPA firm had already been hired by the District to prepare the financial records needed so that the audits can be prepared. Prior to our investigation the District had contracted with a website developer to create a website for the District which is under development. In addition the well pumps that failed resulting in two of the cemeteries’ grass to dry out, have already been fixed and the grass is starting to turn green. FINDINGS The Fresno County Grand Jury finds the following: 1. The District may have violated Government Code Section 26909 in that no annual audit has been submitted since 2019.

F1: (F1) Fresno County owns marginal real estate that has little apparent purpose to the County, is not regularly maintained, and is poorly tracked.

F2: (F2) Fresno County’s current ability to track, manage and plan for its current and future real estate needs is problematic given the county’s size and complexity and has likely led to ownership of unnecessary property, less than timely processes, and financial loss.

F3: (F3) The challenges the County faces in reforming its real estate practices appear to be systemic and long-held and will require cultural change and ongoing commitment to accomplish. 23

F4: (F4) The current staffing level and organizational structure are likely less robust than that required to plan for, fully monitor, or oversee, the County’s real estate holdings.

F5: (F5) Fresno County apparently lacks a comprehensive strategic plan to guide the management of its real estate assets, nor does it appear to have a comprehensive deferred capital maintenance plan adequately funded to fully maintain the County’s buildings over time.

F6: (F6) The system currently used by the County to collect and maintain property data is inadequate given the number of identified errors and incompleteness of property history and other information.

F7: (F7) The processes for leasing property for County use as well as the process of leasing property to others are poorly tracked, fragmented, and likely create the opportunity for error and mistake.

F1: The Finance Department did not identify, or appropriately act upon, indications of fraud in this specific phishing attack.

F2: The Finance Department policies, if correctly followed, would have prevented this fraud from occurring.

F3: Upon learning of the fraud, City officials immediately began to ascertain the magnitude of the loss, the reasons why the loss occurred, and the steps to ensure a fraud of this nature would not occur again.

F4: Today, the Finance Department staff appears to be following policy and exhibiting sound business practices. 10

F1: There were 11 special districts with no website although 3 of these districts had an exemption.

F2: There were 19 special districts with partially compliant websites.

F3: Twenty-four websites met the five legal website requirements noted on the "District Transparency Certificate of Excellence" Checklist.

F4: Not all the websites are as transparent as they could be and only ten special districts: Biola Community Services District • Clovis Memorial District Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District Fresno-Westside Mosquito Abatement District Laton Community Services District Panoche Water District • Pleasant Valley Water District Sanger-Del Rey Cemetery District Selma Cemetery District Selma - Kingsburg - Fowler County Sanitation District received a perfect transparency score based on the "District Transparency Certificate of Excellence" Checklist.

F41: There were 11 special districts with no website although 3 of these districts had an exemption.