Accountability and Transparency of ARRA Funds

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

San Diego County was granted a large sum of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). To ensure compliance and promote accountablility and transparency, and ARRA taskforce was extablished to proactively address such issues as grant accountability, contract management, the prevention of fraud, waste, and abuse, and reporting requirements. The task force establihsed an end-to-end approach for compliance through several training sessions, workshops, a comprehensive checklist, audits, and a new website. The level of discipline that this approach required has led to a cultural shift within the County, with an increased focus on compliance, accountability, and transparency. Lessons learned through this program have been applied to non-ARRA grants as well, resulting in even more accountability and transparency for the County's ultimate clients - the public. An additional benefit of the program was the increased reliance that the California Inspector General was able to place on the County's efforts. This reliance resulted in the cancellation of both of the Inspector General's ARRA program audits scheduled at the County, allowing County resources to stay on task, rather than having to respond to another audit. It further allowed the Inspector General to spend his resources and time on areas where they were more genuinely needed.