Board approves revised response to grand jury report on special-district disbursements

Kings County supervisors approved a revised response on Sept. 30 to the grand jury report titled “Kings County policy and procedure manual — special district disbursements.”

Giselle Goit, administrative analyst for county administration, presented the revised response. The county disagreed with several grand-jury findings, she said, and cited a subrecipient monitoring policy adopted June 25, 2024, which the county says established roles and compliance expectations for dispersing funds to subrecipients, including special districts.

The response addressed three grand-jury findings: (1) that no policies or procedures existed for disbursing or auditing county funds to special districts (the county disagreed and pointed to the subrecipient monitoring policy adopted in 2024); (2) that ARPA disbursements to some cemetery districts lacked formal requests or tracking (county staff said it conducted reviews and found missing documentation at Corcoran Cemetery District but appropriate documentation for other districts); and (3) that ARPA disbursements to community service districts were made without formal requests or documentation (county staff said it used billing reports and forgiveness letters as justification and will strengthen procedures going forward).

County staff agreed with the grand jury’s recommendation that future disbursements to special districts be subject to formal application processes, eligibility criteria and reporting requirements and said the Department of Finance will ensure the subrecipient monitoring policy is followed.

The board approved the revised response and will submit it to the grand jury by the statutory deadline, staff said.

Ending: County administration will submit the board-approved response to the grand jury by Oct. 6, 2025, and staff said it will continue to implement subrecipient monitoring procedures going forward.