Oxnard audit flags CDBG and SAFER compliance lapses; staff outlines corrective action plan

The Finance and Governance Committee on April 22 received the City of Oxnard's 2024 single audit and an update on the city's corrective action plan, and approved forwarding both presentations to the full City Council.

Auditors told the committee the city's federal-expenditures schedule for fiscal 2024 totaled about $26.3 million and that three major programs were tested: the American Rescue Plan Act/local fiscal recovery fund (ARPA), Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant. Auditor Brandon Farrell of ED & Payne said the three major programs accounted for roughly $17 million in expenditures, with about $5.2 million flowing to subrecipients.

The single audit produced no new financial-statement opinion issues, Farrell said, but identified four compliance-related findings across major programs and one lingering prior-year IT control item. "We had no new current year findings for 02/2024," Farrell said, and added that the remaining prior-year IT issue relates to formalizing a process to install computer updates and service systems.

The three compliance findings included two for the CDBG program and two for SAFER. The CDBG issues were (1)…