Solano County Grand Jury • 2023-2024

Oversight of Fairfield’s Measure P May 4, 2023

Published: May 04, 2023 10 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 6 findings

F1
– Fairfield did not comply with its own commitment in its Response to the 2019-20 Grand Jury investigative report to track the use of Measure P revenues.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
– The City should immediately begin tracking all funds received pursuant to Measure P and begin reporting on the expenditure of those funds. The City should also immediately begin making information available to the Oversight Committee as to how the Measure P funds are being spent.
F2
– The Oversight Committee is not currently an advisory committee and as such is not allowed to advise, or make recommendations to, the Fairfield City Council on the use of Measure P funds.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
– The Oversight Committee should be a real oversight committee and be allowed to make recommendations to the City Council with respect to the use of Measure P funds. Such changes to the process would result in more work and more focused work on the part of the members of the Oversight Committee.
F3
– The Oversight Committee, whose members are uncompensated, reviews and analyzes a great deal of financial information, meets four times each year, and is required to report to the Fairfield City Council on the use of Measure P funds. A great deal of time must be devoted to these efforts, and even more time would be required were the City to adopt
Related Recommendations (2)
R3A
– The number of standard Oversight Committee meetings should be no less than six each year.
R3B
– Oversight Committee members should receive an appropriate stipend per meeting attended plus reimbursement of mileage at the legal rate.
F4
– To date, the Oversight Committee’s only interaction with the City Council has been to sporadically prepare an annual report and present it to the City Council each year before completion of the annual audit related to Measure P. The report has not been prepared every year and has been prepared at different times in different years.
Related Recommendations (2)
R4A
– The Oversight Committee should prepare an annual report following the City’s fiscal year-end and it should be prepared and presented to the City Council before the end of each calendar year.
R4B
– The Oversight Committee should prepare an additional report after receipt and review of the annual third-party audit of Measure P funds and any additional reports it deems necessary or advisable.
F5
– Other than a sporadically issued annual report, the Oversight Committee has no real contact with the City Council or the ability to bring concerns it might have with respect to the use of Measure P funds to the City Council.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
– The Oversight Committee should be scheduled on the City Council agenda no less than twice each year and the Committee should be allowed, if not encouraged, to request to be on the City Council agenda additional times as the Committee deems necessary.
F6
– When the Oversight Committee has prepared an annual report, it has not uniformly been posted on the City’s website. Moreover, historical annual reports have not been consistently made available on the City's website.
Related Recommendations (1)
R6
– The Oversight Committee annual report should consistently be released publicly and posted on the City of Fairfield’s website shortly after it is presented to the City Council. All such annual reports should remain available indefinitely on the City’s website. COMMENTS At one point, one member of the Oversight Committee was a minor. That Commissioner was also a member of the City’s Youth Commission. There is no requirement that a minor hold one of the seats on the Oversight Committee. In the interest of involving young people in the governance of their community, the City might consider adding a minor to the membership of the Oversight Committee.

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