Audit/fiscal Committee Kraig Westra, Chairman Ed Brittain Nanette Deffina

Recommendations 13

• R08-01
  Review Executive Support staff requirements in the Assessors Office for potential consolidation of positions to increase efficiency.
• R08-02
  Reclassify Operations management positions to civil service protected.
• R08-03
  Enact policy that requires competitive bidding for consulting services.
• R08-04
  Revise the education reimbursement policy to limit discretionary reimbursement for exempt employees. It is ambiguous and open to broad interpretation. Require employees receiving tuition assistance while working towards a college degree, guarantee the county that they will remain in its employ for a fixed period after graduating.
• R08-05
  Enact policies for separation agreements of County employees that link the length of employment with terms of severance.
• R08-06
  Require that County email system have automatic firewalls in place to preclude all political email from being accessed on the County email system and equipment. AUDITOR/CONTROLLER-RECORDER AND PURCHASING DEPARTMENT CREDIT CARD PROCEDURES AND CONTROLS WITHIN THE SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY SYSTEM BACKGROUND During this year’s Grand Jury term, there have been many public concerns regarding the use of credit cards within the San Bernardino County system. The popular refrain has been that credit card utilization could foster misuse of county funds. Consequently, this Grand Jury has opted to examine the controls and policies in place for use of county credit cards.
• R08-07
  At the time the EDA and Legislative Liaison budgets are established, a “Plan, Justification and Implementation Report” should be generated for each project (each conference, show, class or trip should be an individual project).
• R08-08
  For ease of tracking, each project should be assigned a case number. This case number should be used on all documentation pertaining to that project.
• R08-09
  The total of attendees to conferences, shows, classes or trips should be limited to only the most cost-effective number (see examples 5, 8, 9, 20, 21, 23 and 27). The Grand Jury questions the value to taxpayers of the numbers of officials and employees attending some of the above noted functions.
• R08-10
  The relevance of the location of the conference to San Bernardino County must be taken into account (see examples 1, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 18). 15
• R08-11
  The type of conference or class should return value to the county for tax dollars invested. Therefore, both EDD and Legislative Liaison proposed spending should be examined closely during the annual budget preparation process. Proposed expenditures should be justified on a “return on investment” basis.
• R08-12
  Once the project is completed, a “goal attainment” report should be filed with the Board of Supervisors. The report should reiterate the strategic or tactical objective of the project, the cost, number of persons attending, if the goal was accomplished, or if not, corrective action to be taken, and finally, the value of the project to the county and the taxpayers.
• R08-13
  As examples 5, 8 and 23 illustrate, elected officials attend some of these conferences. In order to provide clarity to the taxpayers for such expenditures, the Grand Jury recommends that all county elected officials file a quarterly “Expense Accountability Report.” This report would be comprised of “overnight travel” expenses and “out of state” travel expenses, with appropriate justification. These reports should be presented to the public as part of the Board of Supervisors’ agenda. 16