Public questions county spending; CAO clarifies consent-item savings and auditors' role

During public comment at the Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting on Feb. 11, several residents raised concerns about county spending and budget oversight. One commenter, Jess Sanders, urged a forensic-style review of budget items and criticized what she described as a practice of "just throwing money at" problems.

Elsa Martinez of the county administrative office responded on the consent-item concern (item 10), clarifying the agenda language: "Actually, this item is the opposite. It is savings. So at the end of the fiscal year... if the invoice happened to be less, that's a saving. So this item is not we're not spending money. We're saving money," Martinez explained. Her remarks were offered to help the public understand the accounting practice reflected on the agenda.

Board members outlined how auditing and efficiency reviews are handled in the county. The auditor-controller's office is the designated authority to perform audits on behalf of the board and can undertake reviews at the board's request, the CAO's office said. Supervisors also described prior Lean Six Sigma process-improvement efforts, cited employee-identified savings reported through that program and pointed to a public "Kern County budget transparency" website as a resource for residents.

Supervisors invited the public commenters to meet with CAO staff for demonstrations of the county's publicly available financial reports and said the standing audit advisory committee and periodic departmental Lean Six Sigma reviews already pursue operational efficiencies. No additional formal budget action was taken during the public-comment period; the board later approved the consent agenda by recorded vote, "all ayes."