Imagine hiring someone to manage your business finances. That manager then chooses every member of the committee responsible for watching how the money is spent. The committee can inspect the records and recommend changes, but the manager is not required to follow its recommendations.
Would you consider that independent oversight?
Fresno County voters should ask that question about Measure S, the proposed 30-year extension of the county’s half-cent transportation sales tax. Supporters point to an 11-member Citizens Oversight Committee, annual independent audits and public reporting. We should examine what those safeguards allow the public to do.
Under Measure S, the Fresno Council of Governments, known as Fresno COG, would administer the transportation program. Fresno COG’s policy board would also select all 11 committee members. The measure bars members who hold elected office, work for certain agencies receiving funds or have a financial interest in a Fresno COG-funded project. These are sensible protections. But every member would still be chosen by the governing board of the agency the committee is supposed to oversee.
Limits on authority
Members could review audits, publish annual findings, make recommendations and refer suspected misuse to prosecutors. The measure does not give them authority to stop an expenditure, change a project decision or require Fresno COG to adopt a recommendation.
That distinction matters. A watchdog needs to do more than identify a problem. The public needs to know what happens after it sounds the alarm.
To be fair, Measure S includes enforcement provisions. Agencies receiving funds must submit annual independent audits, and noncompliant agencies may have funding withheld. Those audits can help answer whether money was spent according to the rules. Taxpayers need another answer as well: Did the spending deliver what was promised?
Spending vs. results
A project can fit an approved spending category and still arrive years late, cost more than expected or miss the street residents most need repaired. Consider a small-business owner whose customers must navigate a damaged street to reach the front door. That owner deserves to know when the street will be repaired, what it will cost and who must explain a missed deadline.
The measure calls for quarterly committee meetings and a comprehensive review at least every 10 years. Yet 10 years is a long time to discover that a spending strategy has fallen short.
The people appointed to the committee may be diligent, independent-minded residents. My concern is with the structure around them.
Before making a 30-year commitment, we should ask: Why does the board administering Measure S select every member of its citizens watchdog? What must Fresno COG do when that committee identifies a problem? And if the spending follows the rules but our streets do not improve as promised, who will be held accountable?
AJ Rassamni is a community advocate, president of United for Fresno (formerly the Blackstone Merchants Association) and founder of Success From Within, a nonprofit organization.
