Improving Transparency and Financial Oversight

By Jim Price

By improving transparency and oversight, agencies will run more efficiently, the community will see relief from the constant barrage of tax increases, infrastructure will be better maintained, and balancing the yearly budget will be made easier.

The culture of distrust and the lack of open, honest communication that exists within our County government prevents agencies from working together in a cooperative environment. This creates low morale among employees, and has played a major role in the failure of agencies to operate efficiently and to provide quality services to the community.

Establishing a Sunshine law will allow closer scrutiny of how County funds are used. It will also make obtaining information easier for the public.

It is the responsibility of the Alameda County Supervisors to lead the way and build a new environment based on trust and transparency. This transparency will promote a more effective relationship between agency administrators, union leaders, employees, and governing bodies. The work of creating operational infrastructure, improving processes, and finding ways to increase revenues will become easier.

In order to improve financial oversight I will advocate the use of the five basic principals of good financial management, which are:

Match ongoing costs with ongoing revenues

Fund one-time costs with one-time revenues

Fund liabilities when they are first recognized

Base the budget on realistic estimates

Continuing a reserve for contingencies

We must do a better job of looking for the warning signs. A local government in financial distress is one that cannot maintain existing services because it cannot meet payrolls and current bills or it cannot pay debt service on long and short-term debt. Our County is struggling to deal with these issues. We must do more to recognize the early warning signs, which include:

Declining population

Change in age and income of the population

Erosion of the tax base

Slow growth in revenue from ongoing sources

Impact of collective bargaining

Impact of inflation on labor-intensive services

Management response to these trends

Effective oversight means evaluating potential programs beforehand and monitoring them on an ongoing basis. As Supervisor, I will work to see that the following practices are followed:

We must always evaluate the potential costs of a program before it is implemented.

We must always put in place evaluation criteria so that additional costs are more likely to be caught sooner rather than later.

We must always place milestones and check points into plans and projects.

We must always include criteria to evaluate the success of a program.

We must establish the practice of using six and twelve month evaluation reports as a good means of following up and assessing a program's success.

I will initiate a review of the approach taken in regard to financial oversight of County agencies. Too often, County projects run over budget, infrastructure is not attended to when costs are still relatively low, and departments spend money unnecessarily at the end of each fiscal year in order to justify the same level of funding for the next year. A lack of good financial oversight causes needed services to fall victim to cuts when the economy is not doing well, and other services to be inadequately delivered.

Financial oversight involves setting policy, making sure that it is carried out, monitoring activities, and evaluating results. Guarding our public checkbook requires properly planning and monitoring spending.