SCO
Sonoma County
Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform
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SONOMA COUNTY
Audit Report
OPEN MEETINGS ACT/BROWN ACT REFORM
PROGRAM
Chapter 641, Statutes of 1986;
and Chapters 1136 through 1138, Statutes of 1993
July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2012
BETTY T. YEE
California State Controller
July 2019
BETTY T. YEE
California State Controller
July 8, 2019
The Honorable Erick Roeser, Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
Sonoma County
585 Fiscal Drive, Suite 100
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
Dear Mr. Roeser:
The State Controller’s Office (SCO) audited the costs claimed by Sonoma County for the
legislatively mandated Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program for the period of July 1,
2005, through June 30, 2012.
The county claimed $874,345 for the mandated program. Our audit found that $632,838 is
allowable and $241,507 is unallowable. The costs are unallowable because the county overstated
its standard-time costs by misstating the number of eligible agenda items and applying incorrect
productive hourly rates to eligible agenda items, and overstated its flat-rate costs by claiming
costs for unsupported and ineligible meeting agendas. The State made no payments to the
county. The State will pay $632,838, contingent upon available appropriations.
Following issuance of this audit report, the SCO’s Local Government Programs and Services
Division will notify the county of the adjustment to its claims via a system-generated letter for
each fiscal year in the audit period.
If you have any questions, please contact Lisa Kurokawa, Chief, Compliance Audits Bureau, by
telephone at (916) 327-3138.
Sincerely,
Original signed by
JIM L. SPANO, CPA
Chief, Division of Audits
JLS/as
The Honorable Erick Roeser, -2- July 8, 2019
Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
cc: Amanda Ruch, Assistant Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
Sonoma County
Levi Ehrlich, Accounting Manager
Sonoma County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
Dorothy Sleeth, Financial Reporting Manager
Sonoma County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
Melissa Estrella-Lee, CPA, Accountant Auditor II
Sonoma County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
Chris Hill, Principal Program Budget Analyst
California Department of Finance
Steven Pavlov, Finance Budget Analyst
California Department of Finance
Debra Morton, Manager
Local Government Programs and Services Division
State Controller’s Office
Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Contents
Audit Report
Summary ............................................................................................................................ 1
Background ........................................................................................................................ 1
Objective, Scope, and Methodology ................................................................................. 2
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 3
Follow-up on Prior Audit Findings .................................................................................. 4
Views of Responsible Officials .......................................................................................... 4
Restricted Use .................................................................................................................... 4
Schedule—Summary of Program Costs .............................................................................. 5
Findings and Recommendations ........................................................................................... 7
Attachment—County’s Response to Draft Audit Report
Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Audit Report
Summary The State Controller’s Office (SCO) audited the costs claimed by Sonoma
County for the legislatively mandated Open Meetings Act/Brown Act
Reform Program for the period of July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2012.
The county claimed $874,345 for the mandated program. Our audit found
that $632,838 is allowable and $241,507 is unallowable. The costs are
unallowable because the county overstated its standard-time costs by
misstating the number of eligible agenda items and applying incorrect
productive hourly rates (PHRs) to eligible agenda items, and overstated its
flat-rate costs by claiming costs for unsupported and ineligible meeting
agendas. The State made no payments to the county. The State will pay
$632,838, contingent upon available appropriations.
Background Open Meetings Act Program
Chapter 641, Statutes of 1986, added Government Code (GC)
sections 54954.2 and 54954.3. GC section 54954.2 requires the legislative
body of a local agency, or its designee, to post an agenda containing a brief
general description of each item of business to be transacted or discussed
at the regular meeting, subject to exceptions stated therein, and specifying
the time and location of the regular meeting. It also requires the agenda to
be posted at least 72 hours before the meeting in a location freely
accessible to the public. GC section 54954.3 requires members of the
public to be provided an opportunity to address the legislative body on
specific agenda items or an item of interest that is within the subject matter
jurisdiction of the legislative body. The legislation requires that this
opportunity be stated on the posted agenda.
Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Chapters 1136 through 1138, Statutes of 1993, amended GC
sections 54952, 54954.2, 54957.1, and 54957.7, expanding the types of
legislative bodies that are required to comply with the notice and agenda
requirements of GC sections 54954.2 and 54954.3. These sections also
require all legislative bodies to perform additional activities related to the
closed session requirements of the Brown Act.
The Commission on State Mandates (Commission) determined that the
Open Meetings Act Program (October 22, 1987) and the Open Meetings
Act/Brown Act Reform Program (June 28, 2001) resulted in state-
mandated costs that are reimbursable under GC section 17561.
The program’s parameters and guidelines establish the state mandate and
define the reimbursement criteria. The Commission adopted parameters
and guidelines on September 22, 1988 (last amended on November 30,
2000) for the Open Meetings Act Program, and on April 25, 2002, for the
Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program. In compliance with GC
section 17558, the SCO issues claiming instructions to assist local
agencies in claiming mandated program reimbursable costs.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
The Open Meetings Act Program became effective on August 29, 1986.
Commencing in fiscal year (FY) 1997-98, a local agency may claim costs
using the actual time reimbursement option, the standard-time
reimbursement option, or the flat rate reimbursement option as specified
in the parameters and guidelines. The Open Meetings Act/Brown Act
Reform Program became effective in FY 2001-02.
Based on the passage of Proposition 30, adopted by the voters on
November 7, 2012, the Department of Finance filed a request for
redetermination of the Open Meetings Act and the Brown Act Reform
Program. On January 23, 2015, the Commission found that the Open
Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program no longer constitutes a
reimbursable state-mandated program, effective November 7, 2012.
Objective, Scope, The objective of our audit was to determine whether costs claimed
represent increased costs resulting from the legislatively mandated Open
and Methodology
Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program. Specifically, we conducted
this audit to determine whether costs claimed were supported by
appropriate source documents, were not funded by another source, and
were not unreasonable and/or excessive.
The audit period was July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2012.
To achieve our objective, we performed the following procedures:
Reviewed the annual mandated cost claims filed by the county for the
audit period and identified the material cost components claimed. For
standard-time option costs, this included the number of agenda items,
the minutes per agenda item, and the blended PHRs. For flat-rate costs,
this included the number of agenda items and the uniform cost
allowance. Determined whether there were mathematical errors or
unusual or unexpected variances from year to year, and whether the
claims adhered to the SCO’s claiming instructions and the program’s
parameters and guidelines;
Completed an internal control questionnaire by interviewing key
county staff members. Discussed the claim preparation process with
county staff to determine what information was obtained, who
obtained it, and how it was used;
Standard-time option
Selected judgmental non-statistical samples from the populations of:
o 11,707 meeting agenda items claimed for the County Board of
Supervisors (BOS), ranging from 12.95% to 15.66% for each
fiscal year of the audit period;
o 4,031 meeting agenda items claimed for the Sonoma County
Employees’ Retirement Association Board of Retirement
(SCERA Board), ranging from 14.56% to 15.05% for each fiscal
year of the audit period;
Counted the number of eligible agenda items identified on the sampled
meeting agendas, compared the results to the number of agenda items
claimed for that meeting, and determined an error percentage for each
year of the audit period;
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Consistent with the American Institute of American Institute of
certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) Audit Sampling Guide,
projected the results from the sample by applying each fiscal year’s
error rate to the total population for that fiscal year;
Held discussions with county representatives to determine which
employee classifications performed the reimbursable activities and the
extent of the mandated activities;
Recalculated the PHR calculations for FY 2005-06 through
FY 2011-12 for all county employee classifications that performed the
mandated activities, using documentation from the county’s payroll
system;
Flat-rate option
Selected a judgmental non-statistical sample of meeting agendas
claimed, ranging from 14.66% to 14.88% for each fiscal year of the
audit period:
o Determined the existence of meeting agendas claimed and
compared the number of supported meetings to the number
claimed (we excluded from consideration meetings that did not
include a provision for public comment); and
o Developed error rates for each fiscal year based on the number of
eligible meeting agendas. Consistent with the AICPA Audit
Sampling Guide, we applied the error rate to the total costs
claimed for that fiscal year.
GC sections 12410, 17558.5, and 17561 provide the legal authority to
conduct this audit. We conducted this performance audit in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards
require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate
evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions
based on our audit objective. We believe that the evidence obtained
provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our
audit objective.
We limited our review of the county’s internal controls to gaining an
understanding of the transaction flow and claim preparation process as
necessary to develop appropriate auditing procedures. Our audit scope did
not assess the efficiency or effectiveness of program operations. We did
not audit the county’s financial statements.
Conclusion As a result of performing the audit procedures, we found instances of
noncompliance with the requirements described in our audit objective. We
did not find that the county claimed costs that were funded by other
sources; however, we did find that the county claimed unsupported and
ineligible costs, as quantified in the Schedule and described in the Findings
and Recommendations section of this audit report.
For the audit period, Sonoma County claimed $874,345 for costs of the
legislatively mandated Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program.
Our audit found that $632,838 is allowable and $241,507 is unallowable.
The State made no payments to the county. The State will pay $632,838,
contingent upon available appropriations.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Following issuance of this audit report, the SCO’s Local Government
Programs and Services Division will notify the county of the adjustment
to its claims via a system-generated letter for each fiscal year in the audit
period.
Follow-up on The county has satisfactorily resolved the findings noted in our prior audit
report, for the period of July 1, 2000, through June 30, 2003, issued
Prior Audit
July 22, 2005, with the exception of Finding 1 of this audit report.
Findings
Views of We issued a draft report on May 31, 2019. Amanda Ruch, Assistant
Responsible Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector, responded by letter dated
June 10, 2019 (Attachment), acknowledging the audit results. This final
Officials
audit report includes the county’s response.
Restricted Use This audit report is solely for the information and use of Sonoma County,
the California Department of Finance, and the SCO; it is not intended to
be and should not be used by anyone other than these specified parties.
This restriction is not intended to limit distribution of this audit report,
which is a matter of public record and is available on the SCO website at
www.sco.ca.gov.
Original signed by
JIM L. SPANO, CPA
Chief, Division of Audits
July 8, 2019
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Schedule—
Summary of Program Costs
July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2012
Actual Costs Allowable Audit
Cost Elements Claimed per Audit Adjustment Reference1
July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006
Standard rate $ 9 0,207 $ 5 6,475 $ (33,732) Finding 1
Flat rate 31,473 20,756 (10,717) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 121,680 77,231 $ (44,449)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 7 7,231
July 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007
Standard rate $ 9 5,812 $ 5 5,914 $ (39,898) Finding 1
Flat rate 26,925 19,031 (7,894) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 122,737 74,945 $ (47,792)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 7 4,945
July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008
Standard rate $ 9 7,487 $ 5 8,371 $ (39,116) Finding 1
Flat rate 25,351 20,221 (5,130) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 122,838 78,592 $ (44,246)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 7 8,592
- - -
July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009
Standard rate $ 9 5,555 $ 5 8,092 $ (37,463) Finding 1
Flat rate 25,245 19,205 (6,040) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 120,800 77,297 $ (43,503)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 7 7,297
July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010
Standard rate $ 9 1,981 $ 8 5,686 $ (6,295) Finding 1
Flat rate 41,012 23,547 (17,465) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 132,993 1 09,233 $ (23,760)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 109,233
July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011
Standard rate $ 8 7,892 $ 8 3,745 $ (4,147) Finding 1
Flat rate 44,366 24,736 (19,630) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 132,258 1 08,481 $ (23,777)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 108,481
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Schedule (continued)
Actual Costs Allowable Audit
Cost Elements Claimed per Audit Adjustment Reference1
July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2012
Standard rate $ 8 2,104 $ 8 5,282 $ 3,178 Finding 1
Flat rate 38,935 21,777 (17,158) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 121,039 1 07,059 $ (13,980)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 107,059
Summary: July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2012
Standard rate $ 641,038 $ 483,565 $ ( 157,473) Finding 1
Flat rate 2 33,307 1 49,273 (84,034) Finding 2
Total program costs $ 874,345 6 32,838 $ ( 241,507)
Less amount paid by the State2 -
Allowable costs claimed in excess of amount paid $ 632,838
_________________________
1 See the Findings and Recommendations section.
2 Payment amount current as of June 21, 2019.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Findings and Recommendations
FINDING 1— The county claimed $641,038 under the standard-time option for the
preparation and posting of agenda items for the Open Meetings Act/Brown
Overstated standard-
Act Reform Program for the BOS ($483,727) and the SCERA Board
time option costs
($157,311) for the audit period. The county claimed costs based on the
(REPEAT)
number of board meeting agenda items times the standard-time allowance
of 30 minutes per agenda item for the BOS and 20 minutes per agenda
item for the SCERA Board times the blended PHR. The blended PHR
includes related benefits and indirect costs for the employee classifications
that performed the reimbursable activity.
During testing, we found that $483,565 is allowable and $157,473 is
unallowable ($64,947 for the BOS and $92,526 for the SCERA Board).
The costs are unallowable because the county misstated the number of
eligible agenda items and applied incorrect blended PHRs to eligible
agenda items.
We previously audited the county’s program claims filed for FY 2000-01
through FY 2002-03. That audit also found that the county misstated the
number of eligible agenda items and applied incorrect PHRs to eligible
agenda items.
Testing Methodology
We used non-statistical sampling to test meeting agendas claimed during
the audit period under the standard-time option for both the BOS and the
SCERA Board. This included:
Determining that the population of items for testing included 11,707
BOS agenda items and 4,031 SCERA Board agenda items claimed
under the standard time option.
Judgmentally selecting meeting agendas claimed under the standard
time option as follows:
o FY 2005-06: 232 out of 1,792 agenda items for BOS and 108 out
of 726 agenda items for SCERA Board
o FY 2006-07: 258 out of 1,731 agenda items for BOS and 103 out
of 700 agenda items for SCERA Board
o FY 2007-08: 263 out of 1,777 agenda items for BOS and 101 out
of 674 agenda items for SCERA Board
o FY 2008-09: 265 out of 1,764 agenda items for BOS and 101 out
of 676 agenda items for SCERA Board
o FY 2009-10: 243 out of 1,620 agenda items for BOS and 104 out
of 691 agenda items for SCERA Board
o FY 2010-11: 234 out of 1,555 agenda items for BOS and 54 out
of 371 agenda items for SCERA Board
o FY 2011-12: 216 out of 1,468 agenda items for BOS and 29 out
of 193 agenda items for SCERA Board;
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Reviewing copies of as many meeting agendas for selected meetings
as possible, available on the county’s website or requested from the
county;
Counting the number of eligible agenda items for meeting agendas
provided under the standard-time option based on the requirements of
the parameters and guidelines. Compared the testing results to the
number of agenda items claimed per meeting to determine an error
percentage for each year of the audit period; and
Projecting the results from the samples selected from each year by
applying each year’s error percentage to the total population for that
year.
Board of Supervisors
The county claimed $483,727 under the standard-time option for preparing
and posting 11,707 agenda items for the BOS during the audit period. We
found that $418,780 is allowable and $64,947 is unallowable. The costs
are unallowable because the county misstated the number of eligible
agenda items by 128 items and overstated the blended PHRs for the entire
audit period. The county misstated the elements of the blended PHR
calculations (employee annual salaries and benefits, productive hours, and
the percentage of various staff members’ involvement in the reimbursable
activities).
The following table summarizes the claimed, allowable, and audit
adjustment amounts for BOS for the standard-time option costs claimed
by fiscal year:
Fiscal Year
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Total
Number of claimed agenda items 1,792 1,731 1 ,777 1,764 1,620 1,555 1,468
Standard time (hour) per agenda × 0.50 × 0.50 × 0 .50 × 0.50 × 0.50 × 0.50 × 0.50 11,707
Total claimed hours 896.00 865.50 8 88.50 882.00 810.00 777.50 734.00
Claimed PHR × 64.10 × 72.73 × 7 2.22 × 70.23 × 97.34 × 103.72 × 105.94
Totals $ 57,434 $ 62,948 $ 6 4,167 $ 61,943 $ 78,845 $ 80,642 $ 77,760 $ 483,739
Claim calculation errors1 (4) ( 3) (3) - 3 (2) (3) (12)
Total claimed costs $ 57,430 $ 62,945 $ 6 4,164 $ 61,943 $ 78,848 $ 80,640 $ 77,757 $ 483,727
Number of allowable agenda items 1,807 1,617 1 ,838 1,674 1,640 1,542 1,461 11,579
Standard time (hour) per agenda × 0.50 × 0.50 × 0 .50 × 0.50 × 0.50 × 0.50 × 0.50
Total allowable hours 903.50 808.50 9 19.00 837.00 820.00 771.00 730.50
Allowable blended PHR × 50.49 × 57.26 × 5 6.65 × 59.17 × 92.21 × 96.96 × 102.55
Total allowable costs $ 45,618 $ 46,295 $ 5 2,061 $ 49,525 $ 75,612 $ 74,756 $ 74,913 $ 418,780
Audit adjustment2 $ (11,812) $ ( 16,650) $ (12,103) $ ( 12,418) $ ( 3,236) $ (5,884) $ (2,844) $ (64,947)
1Minor claim calculation variances due to rounding errors.
2These audit adjustments include the claim rounding errors.
Misstated Agenda Items
The county claimed costs for preparing 11,707 agenda items for its BOS
meetings during the audit period. We found that 11,579 items are
allowable; and the county overstated the number of eligible agenda items
by 128 during the audit period (overstated by 224 and understated by 96).
We judgmentally sampled agendas from BOS meetings during each year
of the audit period, which comprised agenda items ranging from 12.95%
to 15.05% of the number of agenda items claimed per year. We reviewed
the board meeting agendas to determine the number of eligible items.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Following the requirements of the parameters and guidelines, we did not
count items such as “public comments,” “next meetings,” “adjournment,”
and “general discussion matters,” as these are regular repetitive items.
We followed guidance contained in the AICPA Audit Sampling Guide
(May 1, 2017 edition) to apply audit sampling in accordance with
AU-C section 530 (Audit Sampling). The objective of our testing was to
determine whether the count of agenda items (11,707) claimed under the
standard-time option was correct. We defined deviations as agenda items
ineligible for reimbursement per the parameters and guidelines.
The population consisted of the 11,707 agenda items claimed for the BOS
meetings during the seven-year audit period. We determined that the BOS
was one of two county agencies eligible to claim costs under the standard-
time option. We judgmentally selected 14.62% of BOS standard-time
agendas for testing, which comprised 1,711 agenda items. The number of
claimed agenda items remained constant throughout the audit period
(ranging from 1,468 to 1,792). Therefore, we selected between 216 and
265 agenda items per year for testing. The tolerable misstatement, or error
variance, is an error rate of ineligible agenda items within 15%. Our initial
testing revealed error rates within those limits, from -8.68% to 0.86%.
Therefore, we concluded that the amount of testing performed for each
fiscal year provided a reasonable estimate of the variance percentage of
the population as a whole.
We then applied these variance percentages to the number of agenda items
claimed during each year of the audit period to determine the overall audit
adjustment.
The following table presents the calculation of the audit adjustment for the
misstated number of BOS agenda items:
Number of Number of Agenda Agenda Overall Overall
Agenda
Agenda Agenda Items Items Variance- Allowable
Items
Items Items Tested Variance Agenda Agenda
Variance
Fiscal Claimed Tested Percentage Percentage Items Items
Year [a] [b] [c]=[b]÷[a] [d] [e]=[d]÷[b] [f]=[a]x[e] [a]+[f]
2005-06 1,792 232 12.95% 2 0.86% 15 1,807
2006-07 1,731 258 14.90% (17) -6.59% (114) 1,617
2007-08 1,777 263 14.80% 9 3.42% 61 1,838
2008-09 1,764 265 15.02% (23) -8.68% (90) 1,674
2009-10 1,620 243 15.00% (3) -1.23% 20 1,640
2010-11 1,555 234 15.05% (2) -0.85% (13) 1,542
2011-12 1,468 216 14.71% (1) -0.46% (7) 1,461
Totals 11,707 1,711 14.62% (35) -2.05% (128) 11,579
Overstated Productive Hourly Rates
The county claimed blended PHRs and applied them to the following
employee job classifications:
FY 2005-06 through FY 2008-09 – Confidential Secretary;
FY 2009-10 – Chief Deputy Clerk;
FY 2010-11 – three Chief Deputy Clerks; and
FY 2011-12 – Chief Deputy Clerk.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
To validate the county’s assertion of which classifications performed the
reimbursable activities and the extent of their involvement, we met with
representatives of the Clerk to the BOS Office. Based on these discussions,
we determined which employee classifications performed the
reimbursable activities and the extent of their involvement. We also
requested payroll information from the Payroll Office for the staff
members performing the reimbursable activities during the audit period,
and used this information to re-calculate blended PHRs. We found that the
county overstated the claimed rates for all years of the audit period.
The following table summarizes the actual participation percentages for
county staff members performing the reimbursable activities during the
audit period:
Employee Fiscal Year
Classification 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
Actual:
Secretaries 100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 0% 0%
Chief Deputy Clerk* 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 90% 100%
Office Support Supervisor 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 10% 0%
*
In FY 2009-10 and FY 2011-12 there was only one Chief Deputy Clerk, and in FY 2010-11 there were three Chief Deputy Clerks.
We used salary, benefit, and indirect cost information that the county
provided to re-calculate its PHRs. We then multiplied the PHRs by the
actual participation percentages to compute blended PHRs for the audit
period.
The following table shows the calculation of the blended PHR used to
calculate allowable costs for FY 2010-11:
Annual Annual Productive Indirect Total Participation Blended
Salary Benefits Hours PHR Costs PHR Percentage PHR
Employee
Classification [a] [b] [c] d = (a+b)/c [e] f = (d+e) [g] [f] * [g]
Chief Deputy Clerk No. 1 $ 28,776.78 $ 1 6,751.46 533.5 $ 85.34 $ 20.46 $ 105.80 45% $ 47.61
Chief Deputy Clerk No. 2 25,546.96 1 4,714.33 613.0 65.68 15.74 81.42 40% 32.57
Chief Deputy Clerk No. 3 6,604.09 4 ,608.99 125.1 89.63 21.48 111.11 5% 5.56
Office Support Supervisor 12,387.71 6 ,097.55 204.2 90.53 21.70 112.23 10% 11.22
Totals 100% $ 96.96
We performed similar calculations for all other years of the audit period.
We then applied allowable blended PHRs to allowable agenda items for
each fiscal year.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
The following table presents the calculation of total allowable costs under
the standard-time option for BOS meetings during the audit period by
fiscal year:
Allowable Standard Audited /
Total Allowable
Agenda Time Allowable
Costs
Fiscal Items Allowance Blended PHR
Year [a] [b] [c] [a] x [b] x [c]
2005-06 1,807 0.5 $ 5 0.49 $ 45,618
2006-07 1,617 0.5 5 7.26 46,295
2007-08 1,838 0.5 5 6.65 52,061
2008-09 1,674 0.5 5 9.17 49,525
2009-10 1,640 0.5 9 2.21 75,612
2010-11 1,542 0.5 9 6.96 74,756
2011-12 1,461 0.5 1 02.55 74,913
Total 11,579 $ 418,780
Board of Retirement
The county claimed $157,311 under the standard-time option for preparing
and posting agenda items for the SCERA Board during the audit period.
We found that $64,785 is allowable and $92,526 is unallowable. The
unallowable costs occurred because the county misstated the number of
eligible agenda items by 1,329 items, overstated the blended PHRs for
FY 2005-06 through FY 2009-10, and understated the blended PHRs for
FY 2010-11 and FY 2011-12. The county misstated the elements of the
blended PHR calculations (employee annual salaries and benefits,
productive hours, and the percentage of involvement by various staff in
the reimbursable activities).
The following table summarizes the claimed, allowable, and audit
adjustment amounts for the SCERA Board for the standard-time option
costs by fiscal year:
Fiscal Year
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Total
Number of claimed agenda items 726 700 674 676 691 3 71 1 93 4,031
Standard-time (hour) per agenda × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0 .3333 × 0 .3333
Total claimed hours 241.98 233.31 224.64 225.31 230.31 1 23.65 6 4.33
Claimed PHR × 135.44 × 140.86 × 148.32 × 149.16 × 57.02 × 5 8.64 × 6 7.57
Totals $ 32,774 $ 32,864 $ 33,319 $ 33,607 $ 13,132 $ 7 ,251 $ 4 ,347 $ 157,294
Claim calculation errors1 3 3 4 5 1 1 - 17
Total claimed costs $ 32,777 $ 32,867 $ 33,323 $ 33,612 $ 13,133 $ 7 ,252 $ 4 ,347 $ 157,311
Number of allowable agenda items 450 428 260 368 359 3 78 4 59 2,702
Standard-time (hour) per agenda × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0.3333 × 0 .3333 × 0 .3333
Total allowable hours 149.99 142.65 86.66 122.65 119.65 1 25.99 1 52.98
Allowable blended PHR × 72.39 × 67.43 × 72.81 × 69.85 × 84.19 × 7 1.35 × 6 7.78
Total allowable costs $ 10,857 $ 9,619 $ 6,310 $ 8,567 $ 10,074 $ 8 ,989 $ 1 0,369 $ 64,785
Audit adjustment2 $ (21,920) $ (23,248) $ (27,013) $ ( 25,045) $ (3,059) $ 1 ,737 $ 6 ,022 $ ( 92,526)
1Minor claim calculation variances due to rounding errors.
2These audit adjustments include the claim rounding errors.
Misstated Agenda Items
The county claimed costs for preparing 4,031 agenda items for its SCERA
Board meetings during the audit period. We found that 2,702 are
allowable; the county overstated the number of eligible agenda items by
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
1,329 during the audit period. We judgmentally sampled agendas from
county SCERA Board meetings during each year of the audit period,
comprising agenda items ranging from 14.56% to 15.05% of the number
of agenda items claimed per year. We reviewed the SCERA Board
meeting agendas to determine the number of eligible items. Following the
requirements of the parameters and guidelines, we did not count items
such as “public comments,” “next meetings,” “adjournment,” and “general
discussion matters,” as these are regular repetitive items. We also excluded
items that were not discussed, or were cancelled, rescheduled, and/or
withdrawn.
We followed guidance contained in the AICPA Audit Sampling Guide
(May 1, 2017 edition) to apply audit sampling in accordance with AU-C
section 530 (Audit Sampling). The objective of our testing was to
determine whether the counts of agenda items (4,031) claimed under the
standard-time option was correct. We defined deviations as agenda items
ineligible for reimbursement per the parameters and guidelines.
The population consisted of 4,031 agendas claimed for the SCERA Board
meetings during the audit period. We determined that the SCERA Board
was one of the two county agencies eligible to claim costs under the
standard-time option. We judgmentally selected approximately 14.88% of
standard rate SCERA Board agendas for testing, which equaled 600
agenda items. The number of claimed agenda items ranged from 674 to
726 for FY 2005-06 through FY 2009-10, and from 193 to 371 for
FY 2010-11 through FY 2011-12. We selected between 101 and 108
agenda items per year for testing for FY 2005-06 through FY 2009-10;
29 agenda items for FY 2010-11; and 54 for FY 2011-12. The tolerable
misstatement, or error variance, is an error rate of ineligible agenda items
within +/–15%. Our initial testing revealed error rates outside of this limit
except for FY 2010-11, as shown in column [e] of the table below.
Therefore, we concluded that the amount of testing performed for each
fiscal year provided a reasonable estimate of the variance percentage of
the population as a whole.
We then applied these variance percentages to the number of agenda items
claimed during each year of the audit period to determine the overall audit
adjustment.
The following table presents the calculation of the audit adjustment for the
misstated number of SCERA Board agenda items:
Number of Number of Agenda Agenda Overall Overall
Agenda Agenda Items Agenda Items Variance- Allowable
Items Items Tested Items Variance Agenda Agenda
Claimed Tested Percentage Variance Percentage Items Items
Fiscal
Year [a] [b] [c]=[b]÷[a] [d] [e]=[d]÷[b] [f]=[a]x[e] [a]+[f]
2005-06 726 108 14.88% (41) -37.96% (276) 450
2006-07 700 103 14.71% (40) -38.83% (272) 428
2007-08 674 101 14.99% (62) -61.39% (414) 260
2008-09 676 101 14.94% (46) -45.54% (308) 368
2009-10 691 104 15.05% (50) -48.08% (332) 359
2010-11 371 54 14.56% 1 1.85% 7 378
2011-12 193 29 15.03% 4 0 137.93% 266 459
Totals 4,031 600 14.88% (198) -33.00% (1,329) 2,702
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Overstated Productive Hourly Rates
The county claimed blended PHRs during each fiscal year based on staff
members’ percentage of involvement in the reimbursable activities for the
following four job classifications:
FY 2005-06 through FY 2008-09 – Secretary and Administrator
FY 2009-10 – Secretary
FY 2010-11 and FY 2011-12 – Deputy Clerk
To validate the county’s assertion of which classifications performed the
reimbursable activities and the extent of their involvement, we met with
representatives of the Clerk to the SCERA Board Office. Based on these
discussions, we adjusted the percentage involvement for FY 2005-06
through FY 2011-12. We also requested payroll information from the
Payroll Office for the staff members performing the reimbursable
activities during the audit period, and used this information to re-calculate
blended PHRs. We found the county overstated the claimed PHRs for all
years of the audit period except FY 2009-10.
The following table summarizes the actual participation percentages for
county staff members performing the reimbursable activities during the
audit period:
Employee Fiscal Year
Classification 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
Actual:
Secretary 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 0%
Administrator 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Deputy Clerk 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100%
We used salary, benefit, and indirect cost information that the county
provided to re-calculate PHRs. We then multiplied the PHRs by the actual
participation percentages to compute blended PHRs for the audit period,
as permitted by the parameters and guidelines.
The following table shows the calculation of the blended PHR used to
calculate allowable costs for FY 2008-09:
Annual Annual Productive Indirect Total
Salary Benefits Hours PHR Costs PHR
Employee
Classification [a] [b] [c] d = (a+b)/c [e] f = (d+e)
Secretary $ 61,746.53 $ 3 1,838.22 1,788.9 $ 52.31 $ 17.54 $ 69.85
Administrator* - - - - - -
Totals $ 69.85
*The Administrator job classification was not involved in agenda preparation and posting activities.
Therefore, we did not include this classification in the blended PHR calculation
We performed similar calculations for all other years of the audit period.
We then applied allowable blended PHRs to allowable agenda items by
fiscal year.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
The following table presents the calculation of total allowable costs under
the standard-time option for SCERA Board meetings during the audit
period by fiscal year:
Allowable Standard Audited /
Agenda Time Allowable Total Allowable
Fiscal Items Allowance Blended PHR Costs
Year [a] [b] [c] [a] x [b] x [c]
2005-06 450 0.3333 $ 7 2.39 $ 10,857
2006-07 428 0.3333 6 7.43 9,619
2007-08 260 0.3333 7 2.81 6,310
2008-09 368 0.3333 6 9.85 8,567
2009-10 359 0.3333 8 4.19 10,074
2010-11 378 0.3333 7 1.35 8,989
2011-12 459 0.3333 6 7.78 10,369
Total 2,702 $ 64,785
Criteria
Section IV. (A) (Reimbursable Activities – Agenda Preparation and
Posting Activities) of the parameters and guidelines, states, in part, that
reimbursable activities include preparing “a single agenda for a regular
meeting of a legislative body of a local agency and to posting” a single
agenda 72 hours before a meeting.”
Section V. (A) (2) (a) (Claim Preparation and Submission –
Reimbursement Options for Agenda Preparation and Posting, Including
Closed Session Agenda Items – Standard Time – Main Legislative Body
Meetings of Counties and Cities) of the parameters and guidelines states:
List the meeting name and dates. For each meeting, multiply the number
of agenda items, excluding standard agenda items [emphasis added] such
as ‘adjournment’, ‘call to order’, ‘flag salute’, and ‘public comments’,
by 30 minutes and then by the blended productive hourly rate of the
involved employees.
Section V. (A) (2) (b) (Claim Preparation and Submission –
Reimbursement Options for Agenda Preparation and Posting, Including
Closed Session Agenda Items – Standard Time – Special District
Meetings, and County and City Meetings Other Than Main Legislative
Body) of the parameters and guidelines states:
List the meeting name and dates. For each meeting, multiply the number
of agenda items, excluding standard agenda items [emphasis added] such
as ‘adjournment’, ‘call to order’, ‘flag salute’, and ‘public comments’,
by 20 minutes and then by the blended productive hourly rate of the
involved employees.
Section VI. (A) (Supporting Data – Source Documents) of the parameters
and guidelines requires that “all incurred costs claimed must be traceable
to source documents that show evidence of their validity and relationship
to the reimbursable activities.” Section VI. (A) also states:
For those entities that elect reimbursement pursuant to the standard time
methodology, option 2 in section V.A, documents showing the
calculation of the blended productive hourly rate and copies of agendas
shall be sufficient evidence.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Recommendation
No recommendation is applicable for this finding, as the period of as
reimbursement for the legislatively mandated Open Meetings Act/Brown
Act Reform Program ended on November 7, 2012 with the passage of
Proposition 30. For other mandated programs, we recommend that the
county:
Follow the mandated program’s parameters and guidelines and the
SCO’s claiming instructions when preparing its reimbursement
claims; and
Ensure that claimed costs include only eligible costs, are based on
actual costs, and are properly supported.
County’s Response
The County acknowledges the findings and notes [that] the agenda count
discrepancy was due to missing documentation [of] the rationale for
including certain agendas [, and to] staff turnover since 2005. The
County will consider maintaining claim support, including activity
procedures, beyond the current [seven]-year documentation retention
policy for state mandated claims.
FINDING 2— The county claimed $233,307 under the flat-rate option allowable per the
parameters and guidelines under the Open Meetings Act/Brown Act
Overstated flat-rate
Reform Program for the audit period. During testing, we found that
costs
$149,273 is allowable and $84,034 is unallowable.
Claimed costs under the flat-rate option are determined by multiplying an
annual uniform cost allowance by the number of meetings. The uniform
cost allowance is adjusted each year by the Implicit Price Deflator
referenced in GC section 17523.
The costs are unallowable because the county overstated the number of
meetings claimed in all years of the audit period. We worked with county
representatives and searched the county’s website, but the county did not
locate some of the meeting agendas claimed. In addition, some meeting
agendas were ineligible for claiming purposes because the meetings did
not include items for public comment. County representatives could not
explain how those errors occurred because the staff members involved in
the process are no longer employed by the county.
The following table summarizes the claimed, allowable, and audit
adjustment amounts for the flat-rate option by fiscal year:
Fiscal Year
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Total
Claimed Agendas 232 191 168 163 263 278 236 1 ,531
Flat-Rate × 135.66 × 140.97 × 150.90 × 154.88 × 155.94 × 159.59 × 164.98
Total Claimed Costs 31,473 26,925 25,351 25,245 41,012 44,366 38,935 $ 2 33,307
Allowable Agendas 153 135 134 124 151 155 132 9 84
Flat-Rate × 135.66 × 140.97 × 150.90 × 154.88 × 155.94 × 159.59 × 164.98
Allowable Total Costs 2 0,756 1 9,031 2 0,221 1 9,205 2 3,547 2 4,736 2 1,777 1 49,273
Audit adjustment $ (10,717) $ (7,894) $ (5,130) $ (6,040) $ (17,465) $ (19,630) $ (17,158) $ (84,034)
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Overstated Agendas
The county claimed costs to prepare agendas for 1,531 meetings during
the audit period. We found that 984 agendas are allowable and 547 are
unallowable.
The county claimed agendas encompassing eight county departments
during the audit period. We judgmentally selected approximately 14.76%
of meeting agendas for legislative bodies within those departments for
testing. We used non-statistical sampling to test meeting agendas claimed
during the audit period under the flat rate option. This included:
Verifying that the population of items for testing included 1,531
meeting agendas claimed under the flat-rate option;
Judgmentally selecting meeting agendas claimed under the flat-rate
option as follows:
o 34 out of 232 agendas for FY 2005-06
o 28 out of 191 agendas for FY 2006-07
o 25 out of 168 agendas for FY 2007-08
o 24 out of 163 agendas for FY 2008-09
o 39 out of 263 agendas for FY 2009-10
o 41 out of 278 agendas for FY 2010-11
o 35 out of 236 agendas for FY 2011-12
Reviewing copies of as many meeting agendas for selected meetings
as possible, available on the county’s website or requested from the
county;
Determining the existence of meeting agendas for the meetings
claimed under the flat-rate option and comparing the number of
supported meetings to the number claimed. We excluded from
consideration meetings that did not include a provision for public
comment; and
Projecting the results from the samples selected from each year by
applying each year’s allowable agenda variance to the total population
for each department for that year.
Allowable agendas are those associated with meetings that actually
occurred and were supported. Unallowable agendas are those associated
with meetings that were not supported, or meetings that did not include a
provision for public comment. Based on the testing results, we developed
error variances for each of the eight departments based on the number of
eligible agendas compared to the number claimed. We applied these
variances to the number of agendas claimed by each county department
for each fiscal year of the audit period.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
The following table presents the number of agendas claimed, the allowable
agenda variance percentage, the number of allowable agendas, the number
of unallowable agendas, and the audit adjustment for each year of the audit
period:
Agenda Audit
County Claimed Variance Allowable Unallowable Flat Adjustment
Department Agendas (%) Agendas Agendas Rate ($)
FY 2005-06
Health 1 36 58.82% 80 ( 56) $ 1 35.66 $ (7,597)
Human Services 2 9 22.22% 6 ( 23) 135.66 (3,120)
LAFCO 1 7 100.00% 17 - 135.66 -
P&R Management 2 2 100.00% 22 - 135.66 -
Retirement 2 8 100.00% 28 - 135.66 -
Total – FY 2005-06 2 32 153 ( 79) $ (10,717)
FY 2006-07
Health 1 01 57.14% 58 ( 43) 140.97 $ (6,062)
Human Services 2 2 40.00% 9 ( 13) 140.97 (1,833)
LAFCO 1 6 100.00% 16 - 140.97 -
P&R Management 2 3 100.00% 23 - 140.97 -
Retirement 2 9 100.00% 29 - 140.97 -
Subtotal 1 91 135 ( 56) (7,895)
Rounding Adjustment - - - 1
Total – FY 2006-07 1 91 135 ( 56) $ (7,894)
FY 2007-08
Health 81 72.73% 59 ( 22) 150.90 $ (3,320)
Human Services 20 40.00% 8 ( 12) 150.90 (1,811)
LAFCO 15 100.00% 15 - 150.90 -
P&R Management 24 100.00% 24 - 150.90 -
Retirement 28 100.00% 28 - 150.90 -
Subtotal 168 134 ( 34) (5,131)
Rounding Adjustment - - - 1
Total – FY 2007-08 168 134 ( 34) $ (5,130)
FY 2008-09
Health 7 2 70.00% 50 ( 22) 154.88 $ (3,407)
Human Services 2 1 20.00% 4 ( 17) 154.88 (2,633)
LAFCO 1 7 100.00% 17 - 154.88 -
P&R Management 2 5 100.00% 25 - 154.88 -
Retirement 2 8 100.00% 28 - 154.88 -
Total – FY 2008-09 1 63 124 ( 39) $ (6,040)
FY 2009-10
Health 1 23 46.67% 57 ( 66) 155.94 $ (10,292)
Human Rights 2 4 100.00% 24 - 155.94 -
Human Services 1 9 0.00% 0 ( 19) 155.94 (2,963)
LAFCO 1 0 100.00% 10 - 155.94 -
P&R Management 6 1 54.55% 34 ( 27) 155.94 (4,210)
Retirement 2 6 100.00% 26 - 155.94 -
Total – FY 2009-10 2 63 151 ( 112) $ (17,465)
FY 2010-11
Health 9 3 64.29% 60 ( 33) 159.59 $ (5,266)
Human Resources 2 5 100.00% 25 - 159.59 -
Human Services 4 8 0.00% 0 ( 48) 159.59 (7,660)
LAFCO 6 100.00% 6 - 159.59 -
P&R Management 7 8 46.15% 36 ( 42) 159.59 (6,703)
Retirement 2 8 100.00% 28 - 159.59 -
Subtotal 2 78 155 ( 123) $ (19,629)
Rounding Adjustment - - - (1)
Total – FY 2010-11 2 78 155 ( 123) $ (19,630)
FY 2011-12
Health 1 06 57.14% 61 ( 45) 164.98 $ (7,424)
Human Resources 2 6 75.00% 20 ( 6) 164.98 (990)
LAFCO 1 0 0.00% 0 ( 10) 164.98 (1,650)
P&R Management 6 2 40.00% 25 ( 37) 164.98 (6,104)
Regional Parks 6 100.00% 6 - 164.98 -
Retirement 2 6 75.00% 20 ( 6) 164.98 (990)
Total – FY 2011-12 2 36 132 ( 104) $ (17,158)
Grand Total 1,531 984 ( 547) $ (84,034)
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Criteria
Section I. (Summary of Mandate) of the parameters and guidelines
states:
Statutes of 1986, chapter 641 also added Government Code
section 54954.3 to provide an opportunity for members of the public to
address the legislative body on specific agenda items or any item of
interest that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative
body, and this opportunity for comment must be stated on the posted
agenda.
Section IV. (A) (Reimbursable Activities – Agenda Preparation and
Posting Activities) of the parameters and guidelines, states, in part, that
reimbursable activities include preparing “a single agenda for a regular
meeting of a legislative body of a local agency and to posint” a single
agenda 72 hours before a meeting.”
Section V. (A) (3) (Claim Preparation and Submission – Reimbursement
Options for Agenda Preparation and Posting, Including Closed Session
Agenda Items – Flat Rate Option) of the parameters and guidelines states,
“List the meeting names and dates. Multiply the uniform cost
allowance…by the number of meetings.”
Section VI. (A) (Supporting Data – Source Documents) of the parameters
and guidelines requires that “all incurred costs claimed must be traceable
to source documents that show evidence of their validity and relationship
to the reimbursable activities.” Section VI. (A) also states:
For those entities that elect reimbursement pursuant to the flat-rate
methodology, option 3 in section V.A, copies of agendas shall be
sufficient evidence.
Recommendation
No recommendation is applicable for this finding, as reimbursement for
the legislatively mandated Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform
Program ended on November 7, 2012 with the passage of Proposition 30.
For other mandated programs, we recommend that the county:
Follow the mandated program’s parameters and guidelines and the
SCO’s claiming instructions when preparing its reimbursement
claims; and
Ensure that claimed costs include only eligible costs, are based on
actual costs, and are properly supported.
County’s Response
The County acknowledges the findings and notes [that] the unallowable
costs and inaccurate number of agenda items were primarily due to
insufficient [supporting documentation] located for the years 2005-2009.
The County has since improved the SB90 Claim review process to ensure
[that] claims conform to mandated program parameters and only eligible
costs are included in the claim.
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Sonoma County Open Meetings Act/Brown Act Reform Program
Attachment—
County’s Response to Draft Audit Report
State Controller’s Office
Division of Audits
Post Office Box 942850
Sacramento, CA 94250
http://www.sco.ca.gov
S18-MCC-0020