Report 2010-117 Recommendation 1 Responses
Report 2010-117: General Obligation Bonds: The Departments of Water Resources and Finance Should Do More to Improve Their Oversight of Bond Expenditures (Release Date: May 2011)
Recommendation #1 To: Finance, Department of
To enhance the value of the Bond Accountability Web site, Finance should require administering agencies to provide information about the actual amounts of bond funds spent on posted projects at least semiannually.
Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2013
In our original response to the Auditor, we explained that having state agencies report twice a year on "the actual amounts of bond funds spent on posted projects" would be very costly and provide little added value.
State agencies report when bond funds are "committed" to a project and the various applicable dates of when a project will be constructed and where it will be located. We believe that providing a greater level of detail about actual expenditures of bond funds would require setting up significant new tracking systems and would lead to considerable variability in the data reported. We believe the current level of detail provided on the website is the greatest level of detail we can provide with any certainty of accuracy without making significant changes to our tracking systems.
California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Will Not Implement
Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From November 2012
As noted in our July 2011 response, Finance currently requires agencies to post amounts awarded to each project and subsequently to post the actual amount incurred, if different, when the project is complete. We believe this information meets the requirements outlined in Executive Order S-02-07. We do not believe that reporting actual amounts expended, during the life of thousands of grants and projects, provides any more benefit compared to the added cost to complete the work.
California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Will Not Implement
All Recommendations in 2010-117
Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.