Sacramento County’s Board
of Supervisors and top government officials this week rebutted a civil grand
jury report that sharply criticized how they spent early coronavirus relief
funding and refused to implement most of the investigation’s recommendations.
The investigation released
in February concluded that the county “abandoned responsibility for COVID
spending” and “undermined public confidence in government” in 2020 when county
leaders allocated the lion’s share of $181 million in federal coronavirus aid
toward the Sheriff’s Office.
The controversy put a spotlight
on county officials starting in August 2020 when a staff report showed
then-County Chief Executive Nav Gill had allocated more than $104 million of
$181 million in so-called CARES Act funding to salary and benefits for
Sheriff’s Office employees.
Gill’s justification at
the time: By moving general fund dollars out of the Sheriff’s Office budget and
back into the general fund, then backfilling the sheriff’s budget using CARES
Act dollars, the county could offset an anticipated revenue shortfall.
He also said it would free
the county of a Dec. 30, 2020, spending deadline attached to the funding.
The grand jury report,
however, called the budget maneuver “inconsistent with the widely publicized
intent that CARES Act funds be directed to meet the community’s challenges”
triggered by the pandemic.
But supervisors on
Wednesday unanimously approved the county’s responses to the report, which
disagreed “wholly” with seven of the grand jury’s findings and “partially” with
two.
The county agreed with one
finding – saying that it didn’t disburse any of its aid money to cities because
they received their own – and deferred comment on another to the Sheriff’s
Office. Three findings weren’t addressed because they dealt with the city of
Sacramento.
Calling the totality of
the response “very thoughtful and detailed,” Supervisor Phil Serna said the
county’s response to the grand jury does the board and county “a great service.”
“Because I think it
finally makes very clear, in probably the most legal context we’ve seen so far,
what is fact separate from perception or misunderstanding,” he said.
A handful of residents
addressed the board Wednesday criticizing the county’s response to the grand
jury investigation, which began in March 2021 and was triggered by a citizen
complaint.
Kula Koenig, co-founder of
Sacramento’s Social Justice Now Political Action Committee, told supervisors
they shouldn’t congratulate themselves “for adhering to the letter of the law.”
“You can say that it was a
clean audit, there were no findings, there was no misalignment,” she said. “But
there’s a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.
And the spirit of the law was for you to allocate funds in a way that was going
to benefit those most directly impacted by the coronavirus. And that is not
what you did.”
SACRAMENTO COUNTY RESPONSES
Among the grand jury’s
most serious allegations: That the county “abdicated” its responsibility to
determine community needs and to provide oversight in the development and
implementation of its pandemic response.
The county, wholly
disagreeing with that finding, said the board adopted a series of resolutions
to allow staff to respond to the crisis and accept COVID-19 funding.
Procedures were established
for county departments to apply for “program-specific and centrally
administered funds,” including coronavirus relief funds, “based on
department-identified needs,” the county wrote, adding that the board received
regular updates from the director of health services and public health officer.
The county also completely
disagreed with the grand jury’s finding that supervisors used “the vast
majority” of CARES Act money to augment the county budget and support its
operations “while providing minimal support” to its health department or other
agencies “to address community needs” related to the pandemic, “neglecting its
public support responsibility.”
The county noted it
directed tens of millions of dollars in special funding from state and federal
governments to its Department of Health Services. The CARES Act was just the
first round of that funding.
MONEY FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEE SALARIES
Coronavirus relief funding
was also provided to public health and safety departments to cover the cost of
health and safety employees who would presumably be responding to the pandemic
and therefore eligible for the funding, the county wrote.
Funding salary and benefit
costs would allow the county to avoid “major reductions” in health, public
safety, human services and other programs providing “critical services” to
residents, the county said.
On a range of other grand
jury findings where the county “wholly” disagreed, officials asserted that the
county maintained and implemented emergency plans, communicated frequently
about COVID-19 policies and guidelines, and spent all funds in compliance with
federal requirements.
The coronavirus relief
funding program was audited by external auditors for fiscal years 2019-20 and
2020-21 “with no findings reported,” the county wrote.
Of the five
recommendations made by the grand jury – including recommendations for policies
to ensure community input in the use of emergency funding and monthly updates
on the use of special funding – the county declined to implement four.
Those recommendations, the
county wrote, were “not warranted” or “not reasonable” because processes were
already in place to address the points raised.
One recommendation – that
county officials adopt a “transparent and properly noticed budget allocation
and approval process” – had already been implemented by way of a community
engagement plan approved last year, the county said.
The Sacramento Bee
April 28, 2022
Patrick Riley
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