Minimally Prudent

It seems that lessons were not learned from the Lompoc Housing debacle after all. The supervisors have the responsibility for auditing recipients of public monies the wrong way round. Most public housing agencies require the recipients of public funds to hire, and pay for, their own audits. Audits are conducted annually and include compliance scrutiny. The recipients choose from a list of auditors approved by the agency; the auditors are responsible for errors and omissions, and the Auditor-Controller’s office merely reviews the audits. Since millions of public dollars are at stake here, this is a minimally prudent requirement.

Reviewing annual expenditures, as suggested, is simply not comprehensive enough to expose waste, abuse, and fraud. The necessity of one of the supervisors to recuse themselves in this matter makes this self-evident. If these measures are not taken, you can be sure that we will revisit this problem again.