Good morning everyone.

I would like to bring the personnel and public employee meeting to order.

Well, the clerk please call the roll to establish a court.

Thank you chair. Councilmember Telemontes.

Councilmember Valenzuela.

Here.

Vice Chair Maple.

Here.

And Chair Kaplan.

Here. And then for members of the public who happen to be in the audience, if you wish to speak on an item one that's on the agenda, please put in request speaker form.

Or if it's not on the agenda, you will be at the very end for public comments.

Please hand speaker slip up front and we will now proceed to today's agenda.

But before we fully get started, I'd like to ask Councilmember Valenzuela to do the land acknowledgement and the pledge for us.

Thank you.

Please stand if you are able for the opening acknowledgments and honor Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands to the original people of this land.

The Nissanon people, the southern Maidu, Valley and Plains, Mewak put when win-tune peoples and the people of the Wilton Rancho Ria, Sacramento is only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples history, contributions and lives.

Thank you. Now please salute and pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

All right, before we get to our consent and the one item on discussion, I want to clarify a couple things for the record.

Unfortunately, the annual review required of all charter members and direct reports to present to PPNE was mistakenly put on consent by staff.

Chapter 18 in council rules sets forth a requirement that all charter and direct reports present to PPNE.

At no time was the intent of the language or should this language be inferred to allow annual reports to go on consent, percent equals discussion and presentation.

We are a public body and a public institution in order to hold the highest standards of transparency.

All of these items require presentation and discussion to PPNE committee.

This transparency of presentation allows the public body to discuss each respective departments goals and achievements and allows this body to have a standard of accountability.

The presentation process is just step one laid out in the council rules for accountability and transparency of the council's direct reports.

The actual evaluation is a closed session item a set out in chapter 18 of council rules.

Furthermore, salary discussions will follow the process laid out in government code, which requires an open session discussion.

Right now is not the time to discuss salaries or individual evaluation.

This process is set forth with PPNE is to discuss the past year and future direction of each department.

This can only happen when there is a presentation.

Thus, a mistake of having the reports on consent was not done under the chair's direction.

Therefore, item two on consent is going to be postponed to a later PPNE date where this item will appear under discussion and each direct report will present to this committee,

including the city manager, which was left off as well.

Everyone's time is valued and it's important these presentations are important that happen in public.

Thank you. I would now like to just move consent item one the minutes and item two postponed to another PPNE meeting, which will appear as a discussion item.

Do I have a second?

Second by Vice Chair Maple. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Now moving on to item three, which is the annual report and performance evaluation for our point of interim city auditor.

Welcome and we look forward to your presentation.

Thank you.

All right. Good morning.

Thank you. Chair Kaplan and members of the personal and public employees committee.

I'm Frishta Rari, the interim city auditor.

The recommendation that is before you is to receive the city auditor's fiscal year 2024 annual report and consider and make recommendations to the council and pass the motion forwarding this to the city council for final approval.

So just a quick agenda for this presentation.

We'll start with a quick review of the city auditor's roles and responsibilities.

Our office's mission, philosophy and vision and will detail our work for fiscal year 24.

We'll also review some key deliverables and performance goals that were reviewed and approved by this body during the fiscal year 2023 annual report presentation.

And discuss our goals and objectives for fiscal year 2025.

So the office of the city auditor provides independent objective and reliable information regarding the city's ability to meet its goals and objectives and establish an adequate system of internal controls.

We identify areas for city to improve city operations and enhance its efficiency and effectiveness.

In 2018 voters approved measure K which establishes the city auditor as a charter officer.

In addition, the duties and of the city auditor and the independent budget analysts were combined in this measure.

And so section 77 of the city charter states that the city auditor shall independently assess and report on the city's operations and services.

So we'll discuss the council and conduct a budgetary inquiries and in the making of budgetary decisions and shall have such other powers and duties as may be prescribed by state law or ordinance or resolution of the city council.

So city code section 2.18.050 further outlines the duties of the city auditor and it includes conducting audits of city departments offices boards commissions and committees as directed by the council managing the city's whistleblower hotline and determining if allegations of fraud, waste abuse or illegal acts need further investigation.

Assisting the council and budgetary inquiries and budgetary decisions as requested making recommendations to the council in connection with the city auditor's reports investigations analysis studies and audits and if requested by an individual council member auditing that council member's own office through an independent outside auditor.

The city code also outlines the city auditor's access to all sources of information property and personnel relevant to the performance of an audit unless restricted or prohibited by law.

In addition, the city code prohibits any person from directly or indirectly coercing or attempting to coerce the city auditor relative to its audit audit examinations or appointment or removal of any employee of the city auditor.

The mission of the office of the city auditor is to provide a catalyst for improvements of municipal operations and promote a credible efficient effective equitable fair focus transparent and fully accountable city government.

The audit function is an essential element of the city of Sacramento's public accountability. Our work depends on following the three standards here independence objectivity and technical accuracy.

We strive to be independent in fact and appearance and free from personal external and organizational impairments to ensure that our findings opinions conclusions judgments and recommendations are impartial.

The office conducts all projects objectively factually and without preconceived ideas notions biases or vested interests regarding the subject and we based all our conclusions and recommendations on a full review of relevant information and an open mind and consideration of opposing viewpoints.

The office utilizes strict quality assurance programs to ensure staff exercise due professional care adequately planned projects and prepare work papers that contain sufficient and compelling evidence to support any statements of fact made in its reports.

And the vision of the office is to improve city services by providing independent objective and reliable information regarding the city's ability to meet its goals and objectives and establish an adequate system of internal controls.

Route out any improper governmental activities such as fraud waste or abuse and address racial gender or ethnic inequities.

So this is just an overview of the city auditor team our office consists of 10 full time positions but as I've mentioned before we currently have three vacancies in the office during the process of being filled and so we hope to be fully staffed in the next few months.

And I just want to take a moment to give a quick shout out to our really small office and staff we've gone through a lot during this past fiscal year with the departure of the previous city auditor and everybody has really stepped up and taken on additional rules and responsibilities in order to ensure that the office is successful in meeting our mission.

So I want to bring this to the public and the committee's attention and let them know that their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

So just an overview of the office staff demographics this slide shows the gender composition of the office in the last four years compared to the demographics of city residents.

And the office generally does well to reflected staff in its staff the gender and ethnic diversity of city of Sacramento.

Unfortunately the most recent separations tended to be male so we got our gender composition a little skewed at the moment.

And then this is the ethnic and racial diversity of the office compared to city residents and again for a small office of just seven right now I think we're still pretty relatively diverse.

So on to the update for fiscal year 24 on May 9th 2023 the city council approved the city auditor's fiscal year 2023 24 work plan which included work under the office's three divisions performance audits research analysis and whistleblower hotline.

And then during the fiscal year the office completed eight projects so of note are the audit of the Sacramento police departments evidence and property division of sexual assault evidence kids we did our preliminary important the homeless response we did an audit of Department of Utilities to provide free control and data acquisition system.

And a lot of other work including the city otters now required baseline funding calculation for the Sacramento Children's Fund.

The office of the city also provided the city council with quarterly reports regarding the office's activities and semi annual recommendation follow up reports.

By the end of fiscal year 2024 we had several additional projects and progress including a few projects we had to put on hold due to our staff attrition and vacancies as previously mentioned we are currently going through the process of filling the vacancies so hopefully we'll be able to pick some of these projects back up and get them completed.

All right and so the city otters work plan is designed to be flexible adjusting to new risks and changing priorities annually we review and reprioritize projects to determine their relevance for the upcoming year.

Consequently some projects are deferred to the next year's work plan while others may be reassessed and excluded.

This ensures that our efforts are consistently aligned with the city's most pressing needs.

In May 2024 the city council approved our fiscal year 2025 work plan which included three projects that were rolled over from fiscal year 2024.

Those were the audit of pedestrian safety the audit of the planning division and the audit of illegal cannabis cultivation.

In addition to the reports that we produce to promote transparency and accountability the office maintains several dashboards that the city council city employees and public can use to analyze certain information.

The office maintains several dashboards for our recommendation follow-ups and the most below our hotline.

In addition the three most recent community surveys also have dashboards with them and we have several dashboards for the diverse city work that are office conducts including one for the gender and I think diverse city of city employees and three for the 2022 diversity of workplace climate and survey results.

In addition on this side you'll see that we actually have three new dashboards are not included in our annual report because we just released them last last week and therefore the diverse city of city separation city hires and city applicants.

And that compliments the report that we recently released last month that's going to the full city council I believe in August.

During fiscal year 2024 our office was also busy redesigning our public facing website as part of the city wide website migration efforts.

And our office was also the recipient of an association of local government auditors 2023 distinguished night and award for best performance audit among local government audit organizations of a similar size.

The winning report which was the audit of the Sacramento Police Department's evidence and property division of sexual assault evidence kits was judged on several key elements such as the potential for significant impact the persuasiveness of the conclusions the focus on improving government efficiency and effectiveness and its clarity and conciseness judges from pure organizations determined that this audit was among the best of 2023.

So as I mentioned during fiscal year 2023 annual report process the former city auditor proposed the tracking of seek of key deliverables for the office and those were ensuring the office receives a certificate of compliance with generally accepted government auditing standards within the last three years.

And so our last peer review which is what it's called was completed in September 2022 and a certificate of compliance was awarded to the office for the period of January 1st 2019 through December 31st 2021 our next peer review period ends in the end of this year December 31st 2024 so we'll be getting our peer review next year.

The second thing was presenting the proposed work plan by April 15th the city auditors proposed work plan for fiscal year 2425 was presented to the budget and audit committee on April 9th 2024 and the final work plan was approved by the city council on May 28th 2024.

And then the last thing was to provide the city council with activity reports regarding audit recommendations and whistleblower tips and investigations.

The city council was kept reprised of the office activities through various mechanisms such as quarterly activity reports recommendation follow-up reports or annual work plan committee and council presentations and individual briefings.

In addition to the key deliverables a number of performance goals were proposed during the former city auditors fiscal year 2023 annual report presentation.

We have exceeded most of the performance goals with 100% of our staff meeting continuing education continuing professional education requirements of generally accepted government auditing standards.

100% of the audit recommendations made during the fiscal year being agreed upon by city management 100% of our audit findings being accepted by the city council and 100% of our audit recommendations being accepted by the city council.

Our goal for our work plan was to complete or initiate 80% of our work plan during fiscal year.

However, we were at 70% this year and as I mentioned it's mostly due to our vacancy issue.

For fiscal year 2025 we're excited to continue to work with the city council and city management on the city's whistleblower hotline and auditing city operations and services to identify areas and opportunities for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.

In addition I'll be focusing on internal improvements including enhancing collaboration and communication.

So when we're working on fostering strong working relationships with city departments, the city council and external stakeholders and developing and implementing collaboration and communication tools to demystify the performance audit process and clarify expectations.

We're going to be working on promoting operational efficiencies and design and deploy interactive dashboards to enable city staff and the public to analyze data effectively which actually met because we really started dashboards last week and continue advancing the offices, racial and gender equity action plan to promote inclusivity and diversity and completing our recruitment efforts.

So we want to finalize our recruitment process to ensure full staffing and these resources will be crucial in achieving the offices fiscal year 2025 work plan.

And then complying with upcoming changes to standards so we need to work on revising our policies, procedures and templates to align with forthcoming updates to generally accepted government auditing standards.

This concludes my presentation and I'm available to answer any questions.

Thank you. Madam, interim city auditor, I think it should be pointed out that we really appreciate you being here and doing this presentation.

For the public, she is also doing this as she was the assistant city auditor, but when our auditor left stepped up is now our interim.

The city is going through a hiring process and opened it up nationally.

But the fact that you have stepped up and taken on this role and are also moving forward in filling those vacancies and implementing the work plan as that forward, I want to say thank you for that.

And not just tentatively managing things, you know, you have you have taken on the interim process and the interim role in a way that I appreciate.

And I just want to say I look forward because I know there's been some confusion and discussions of how we implement the whistleblower hotline.

I think that, you know, I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I know many of us want to see how a clear process can be set forth and resolved.

And so we appreciate you working on that in the meantime. And if there are any resolutions to handling that process and making sure it works appropriately, letting all of us know.

But I would now like to turn it over to my fellow council members for their thoughts as well. Councilmember Talamontes.

Thank you, chair. First, your team is small, but mighty. I know you guys have a lot on your plate, especially being on budget and audit, like seeing how we can prioritize all the audits that you have has definitely been challenging.

I hope we have provided you with enough direction to be able to continue those audits. And if not, like coming back and saying, hey, I need more clarity, just because our team is so small.

So I do have a question about the vacancies. I know we have three of them. And one of them is the cannabis auditor. I don't know if it's just me. I feel like this one's an ongoing position that we have to open and close.

Is there anything consistency in the office or is this just like a challenging position because cannabis is so new to the state in terms of like government regulation? So like, is this going to be a challenge to fill this position?

No. So we got approved for the position. I want to say probably four years ago. And we did recruitment and we did fill that position. So we've had the same cannabis auditor until just recently when they left.

We did open the recruitments and we have made an offer to somebody to start. And I believe they're going to be starting in September. They wanted a little bit longer than the typical two, three weeks that people usually take. So we're accommodating that.

So hopefully they'll be able to start in September, but it's not fully complete. So that's why we hadn't got it. Okay. Okay. Well, that makes me happy here just because there's so many cannabis audits and seeing that vacancy.

It worries me for you and the well being of your own team. And just like Chair Kaplan said, I know the whistleblower hotline has been quite challenging for your department. And I'm happy to hear one as a goal.

But to hear that there's a collaborative relationship so that you get the information that you need. Our whistleblower hotline is really important in the city of Sacramento and employees deserve a right to say, hey, I don't, this is what I see. And to be able to report it.

So it's important for us as a government body to be able to fully investigate the whistleblower complaint. So thank you so much. And if you need anything from us, please let's just know.

Of course. Thank you. Yeah. And I am actively working with management to update the processes and think we're getting to a good resolution on that.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, just really first of all, I want to congratulate you in your office and your team on the 2023 Distinguished Nightingale Award.

So I don't know much about that award, but how often has the City Honors Office in Sacramento received something like that?

We've actually been lucky enough to win the award multiple times. You can only submit one audit every year for that award.

And there's over I think 300 audit shops from around the country and Canada that compete for that award.

And they have different based on audits shop size. They have different categories. So the one that's similar to our shop size, we have won a good amount of times. I think I have four projects that I've worked on.

Wonderful. Yeah. Awesome. That's great. Great news. Congratulations. I also really wanted to say that I appreciate you stepping up into this leadership position during this time of change in the office.

Obviously, former City Auditor departed and then also the vacancy rate that you've mentioned has been a challenge.

So being able to step up and come into this leadership position and just fully dive in and do it has been really impressive staying on the work plan, releasing the dashboards.

I had a question. You kind of addressed this, but just want to go into a little bit more detail about your strategies for addressing some of the vacancies.

I mean, you talked a little bit about the recruitment process, but yeah, so we will one of the vacancies obviously is the city auditor that I'm filling interim.

So my other position assistant city auditor is vacant at the moment. But the other two vacancies we had were one was a senior cannabis auditor and one was a senior fiscal policy analyst.

We did do recruitments for that. And like I mentioned, we made an offer for the cannabis one and the other one we actually promoted to Chevelle to that position.

So now we have to fill back fill her position and we'll be getting that opened and recruited for shortly.

So that's I'm hoping that we'll get that process completed and then you know, City Council is doing the recruitment for the other position.

So it sounds like you have a good plan in place. So then I just have a couple of like more broad questions. One, as you see it right now, obviously you're not new to the office, just kind of new into this role.

Are there any challenges that you foresee in the next year or so in completing the work plan as you have outlined?

I think it's just the challenge is going to be trying to do so much with so little resources. As you know, like this homeless audit is a really big one that's a priority for the city and the council and it's a priority for us as well.

So we have a like our best auditors on that project. But it's such a big project and you know every piece that we start looking into like, okay, this is even bigger than we thought.

So it is just so much to learn about and process and look at identify the risks areas that we want to actually do further like field work and auditing again so we can provide the best and most useful information to the council.

So I think it's just like the size of the audits and the projects and the resources that we have to complete them.

That's really helpful and I think especially for us and our colleagues who may or may not be listening to this to hear that in the public to hear that.

As we go into a new budget process, obviously we have a challenge budget again coming up this year but it's important for us to hear where we may need more resources, more staffing, more time, whatever that might be from everyone.

And so that's that's helpful for me. And then the last question I have is you know kind of in the same vein but is there any help that you can see right now that you might need from the city council from us or from city management to help kind of complete the work that you need to do and yeah.

I would say just some patience you know following the generally accepting government auditing standards we have very strict standards and guidelines for how we conduct our audits.

People think our audits really are something that can quickly be done but they really do have a long process.

For us from city management I mean the last you know since I've been in around they've been really great they've been very responsive to our records repress got us the access to outside stakeholders and consultants that we needed to reach out to to conduct our audits.

So I think we're doing pretty well but I would say just like the patience because everyone wants the audits yesterday but we want to make sure that we're going to give quality products to you guys when we're done.

Yeah I would say especially as politicians.

Really really helpful thank you so much for the information for your hard work and it's really impressed on what you've been able to do in a short period of time.

So thank you.

How do you think about you?

I think the development of this work is really good and I really think that's a great way to do that.

Well let me echo the kudos for your leadership as an interim city auditor.

I think a lot of folks might have put it in cruise control and just let it glide but that hasn't been my impression of you since taking on this position and hearing today's presentation.

So definitely want to commend you for your productivity and doing the work since the New York Department so well.

dashboards. I was just like clicking along here and it's like having the separation of

the applicants and the hired and the, I forget the word you used for separated is so interesting.

It's like, oh, we have more diverse applicants than we're hiring. That's a question to explore,

right? Like, why are less diverse candidates moving through and then we have more diverse

candidates leaving than we hired? Like, so I think it helps with that disaggregation of

data is really cool and like, I got that cruising these in two minutes, you know, and so just

the visibility on that is really well executed. So you and your team are doing just an excellent

job on that. I guess I also just want to come in to you on the homeless services audit and

recommend that you continue to do what I was really impressed with this year was that you came

to us and basically said, look, this is too big. You know, we'd love to look at the entire

homeless services system, but we just can't. And so what are your priorities? I hope you'll

do that again since it sounds like you're again starting to unearth this onion and finding

out there's a whole onion field underneath it and mean like, whoa, like we might need more

time there. So I hope you'll continue that kind of proactive outreach to us. Don't just sit

there and drown, you know, and the side doing work that we've given you that's too big and just

keep coming back to us because I think we all appreciate the capacity limitations you're

under and also the we want you to do the work that you feel confident in and that your team

feels like they can achieve in a timely way. So I hope you'll consider doing that this

year as well. But yeah, that was my only comment. Thank you. Yeah. And part of the homeless

audit when we brought it back to you guys, we did mention that, you know, once we start

the audits, we might break them up and so you guys get pieces of it while we get it done.

And I think that is kind of the road we're going on now, which is even that first homeless

audit, the Motel Shelter Program. That's a huge program that we do not know how big it

was until we actually started looking into it. And so like, that's just a huge piece

of it. And then of itself, so we might break that up and then other parts of like the

data and other parts. So you might get like three reports with just one audit.

And I just want to follow up and again, say thank you. And I think when you look at 2025,

a key thing is the collaboration and communication because you're right, vice-maris, we head into

budget discussions and you do have vacancies. As much as we'd all like to say what additional

resources it may say, okay, we don't have additional resources. And it's okay to come

back to us and say, okay, we've looked at these things. I need council approval to potentially

shift some priorities because we won't be able to accomplish. There is only so much capacity

for each of your employees and yourself, which I completely understand. And as just like

we've discussed with the homelessness audit, it keeps like you go down a rabbit hole and

that rabbit hole has like five different offshoots. How do we, how do we have those conversations?

So one thing to think about and just put a little pin in is, is there a time that you

need to give an update to budget and audit and seek further direction and clarification

because you just find we don't, as I see a couple of your employees, we don't need you

to be pulling your hair out and staying up all hours and worried about how am I going

to accomplish something where auditing is the one thing that being a little slower methodical

dot the eyes across the T's because accurate factual information is so important because

audits lose any value when there are glaring mistakes. And that's what gasp basically sets

up, which I know. So I want to, I want to thank you for keeping us informed, but I think

it will be the constant collaboration and communication with us along with interim.

How are you doing what's going on? So if there does need to be movement or readjustment

of the work plan or council priorities that we can work with you on that. So that is just

my one suggestion of just, you know, maybe it's a quarterly check in to let us know, you

know, because everything changes monthly where you're going to be.

So with that, I will make the motion to move this forward to council. But before taking

a second, any public comments? I have no speaker slips. No speakerships slips. I will take

a second. Second by council member Valensweil. All in favor, aye.

Aye. Thank you for coming and thank you for your presentation.

First clerk, are there any speaker slips and items not on the agenda?

Thank you chair. I have no speaker slips. All right. With that, then I will call this

meeting adjourned at 11. Oh, yes. Councillor, sorry. Comments on items not on the agenda,

council member Valensweil. I just had a question. Sorry. And I think I misunderstood

your statement at the beginning of the meeting. So my first question is, are the other charter

officers going to get an opportunity to present? But my initial question even before this

was, I noticed the city manager report wasn't included in the item at all. So is he coming

at a different time or what's the expectation for that? So the expectation, there was a mistake

on the agenda, not at the direction of the chair. All of these items should only be for discussion

and presentation. And it is unknown why the city manager's presentation was also not

on there. So that is why I'm delaying this to a future P. P. N. E. meeting so that everybody

can present including the city manager. Okay. Thank you.

Welcome. All right. Anything else? All right. All in favor of adjourning the meeting

at 1136. Thank you.