Report 1213, “Financial Transparency with Meaning” was of interest to me because it attempts to discuss financial transparency with
regard to city finances for all the cities of Contra Costa County. City finances are a complex and broad subject
to try and address in a grand jury report, and I looked to see what I could
glean from the responses to the findings and recommendations.
What I gleaned is that the report responses provide insight
into the approaches and attitudes of each city, but that a reader needs to read
the responses in detail to really understand what each city is saying about
their finances and how they display them to the public. Sometimes the short response is “disagree”
but then they provide an explanation of what they do which looks to me like
agreement with the grand jury report.
And the cities did interpret some of the recommendations differently,
probably because the recommendations tried to cover multiple aspects of an
issue and the city chose to focus on some rather than all of the issues.
Where I had biases to begin with the responses did not
change my mind – they neither convinced me I was right or that I was
wrong. And I think any generalization
about the cities of Contra Costa County would be hard to justify. Each has different approaches and
attitudes. I think almost all project
that they aim to inform their public about their finances rather than hiding
them. But what they deem acceptable
varies greatly (one city said they thought their reports were better than what
is available in the private sector, and I have a problem with comparing reports
to share holders to reports to the general public). By publishing the report the Grand Jury was
clearly stating they thought there was a lot of room for improvement. Only a few of the cities appear to agree that
improvement is needed and they are open to new ideas.
Even so, the responses are interesting and varied. Each city responded in their own way. Fortunately for anyone wanting to interpret
the results in general they give more than one word answers, so it is possible
to get a feel for how each city feels about the report and its recommendations
and findings.
In my opinion the response vary from dismissing the report
and saying what they currently have is good enough, to the opposite extreme of
saying there are some good ideas in the report which will be considered. It did seem like the cities with the best public
facing reports were also the ones most willing to consider new ideas in the
report.
I attach my summary of my interpretation of how the cities
responded to a couple of the findings and all the recommendations. The key takeaway from this table is that a
lot of the cities feel like what they do already meets the recommendations of
the grand jury. I doubt the grand jury
agrees with that as they would not have made the recommendations if they did
not think they were relevant for most of our cities.
City
|
Finding
2
|
Finding
10
|
Recommendation
1
|
Recommendation
2
|
Recommendation
3
|
Recommendation
4
|
Recommendation
5
|
Antioch
|
agree
|
partially
agree
|
already
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
Brentwood
|
agree
|
agree
|
already
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
Clayton
|
agree
|
partially
disagree
|
will
not be implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
Concord
|
partially
disagree
|
partially
disagree
|
will
not be implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
Danville
|
partially
disagree
|
partially
disagree
|
will
not be implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
El Cerrito
|
agree
|
agree
|
will be
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
already
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
requires
further analysis
|
Hercules
|
agree
|
agree
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
might
be implemented
|
will
consider
|
LaFayette
|
partially
disagree
|
partially
disagree
|
requires
further analysis
|
will be
implemented
|
partially
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
Martinez
|
agree
|
partially
disagree
|
already
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
Moraga
|
agree
|
partially
disagree
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
Oakley
|
partially
disagree
|
partially
agree
|
already
implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will
consider
|
Orinda
|
disagree
|
disagree
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
requires
further analysis
|
Pinole
|
partially
disagree
|
partially
disagree
|
already
implemented
|
partially
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
will be
implemented
|
Pleasant Hill
|
agree
|
agree
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
Pittsburg
|
agree
|
agree
|
will
not be implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
will
not be implemented
|
Richmond
|
agree
|
agree
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
San Pablo
|
agree
|
partially
agree
|
already
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
already
implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
requires
further analysis
|
San Ramon
|
agree
|
agree
|
will
not be implemented
|
requires
further analysis
|
already
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
will be
implemented
|
Walnut Creek
|
partially
disagree
|
agree
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
already
implemented
|
Contra Costa County Chapter of the California Grand Jurors' Association. ... (CGJA) page of general information. What is a county grand jury and what does it do.. financial planning india
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