SALINAS — The Monterey County civil grand jury stated county Auditor-Controller Rupa Shah should create written policies and procedures to file public employee salary compensation data to the state in a timely manner.
The recommendation came in the first report released by the 2018-2019 civil grand jury titled “Disclosing Public Employee Salary Data in Monterey County.” The report examines state laws established following the financial corruption scandal in Bell, a suburb of Los Angeles, and the compliance with those laws by the Monterey County Auditor-Controller’s Office.
The civil grand jury found the Auditor-Controller’s Office failed to meet deadlines for filing public employee salary compensation data to the California State Controller’s Office in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and the submissions were non-compliant, meaning they were either incomplete, filed in a different format than required by the state or were submitted after the reporting deadline.
“Public employee salary compensation is, by far, the single largest expense of the county budget; and taxpayers deserve to have an accurate and transparent accounting of the data,” the report stated. “Since the inception of the reporting mandate in 2010 and state law in 2015, the Monterey County Office of Auditor-Controller has not had written policies and procedures for submitting the data on time to the (State Controller’s Office). The civil grand jury believes future late filings can be avoided by creating and instituting written policies and procedures that include calendar driven protocols for timely filing.”
According to the civil grand jury, current law requires counties, cities and special districts to submit salary compensation data to the state by April 30 each year for the previous calendar year. The report stated the county filed its data last year on July 13. In 2017, the county filed June 28. In 2016, the county filed Aug. 22.
The civil grand jury found Monterey County was not alone in filing late each of those years. Last year, 11 counties missed the deadline. Seven counties filed late the previous year and 13 counties filed late in 2016. While penalties for late filing, or if the data are deemed false, incomplete or incorrect, range from $1,000 to $5,000, the report stated Monterey County did not incur any penalties from filing late in 2016, 2017 or 2018.
The report found data for 2015 and 2015 was not posted to the state website until 2018 due to salary compensation anomalies related to special compensation practices that had to be clarified. The civil grand jury found the county did not proactively address those anomalies.
Among its findings, the civil grand jury stated taxpayers should have an accurate accounting of public employee salary and pension compensation and the Auditor-Controller’s Office deprived the public of timely information by failing to meet the state’s deadlines.
The report recommends the Auditor-Controller’s Office create written policies and procedures to file public employee salary compensation data to the State Controller’s Office by fiscal year 2019-2020. That goes along with the report’s other recommendation: to file the data required by law by the deadline each year, in a manner and format specified in the law.
The report states Shah, who was elected auditor-controller last year, already has weekly meetings to discuss upcoming calendar deadlines.
The civil grand jury interviewed staff with the Auditor-Controller’s Office, spoke to and corresponded with staff from the State Controller’s Office, reviewed the salary data for 5,875
Monterey County public employees and reviewed pension and health care costs for retired public employees for its report.
May 14, 2019
Monterey Herald
By Tom Wright
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