Report 2020-114 Recommendation 7 Responses

Report 2020-114: California Air Resources Board: Improved Program Measurement Would Help California Work More Strategically to Meet Its Climate Change Goals (Release Date: February 2021)

Recommendation #7 To: Air Resources Board, State

To better ensure the accuracy of its program data, by August 2021 CARB should develop a formal schedule and procedures for reviewing the supporting documentation maintained by its program administrators. These procedures, which CARB should begin using with the 2022 annual report, should specify a minimum number of records to review in relation to the program's size, should specify how staff will collect and maintain evidence to support conclusions, and should be standardized across all of CARB's incentive programs.

6-Month Agency Response

Policies and Procedures for the Low Carbon Transportation, FARMER, and CAP Incentive Programs have been developed to include procedures on how staff will conduct and maintain evidence of program oversight by the program administrator/grantee; which staff refer to as desk reviews. These policies and procedures have been recently updated to include more clearly defined formal review schedules and minimum numbers of records to be reviewed for each program.

Though each incentive program is unique in appropriation amount, administration process, maximum incentive level per project, etc., the procedures for conducting reviews are standardized across all programs where feasible. Additionally, reviews for all applicable funding programs will be combined when a review is conducted on administrators of multiple CARB incentive programs.

CARB will begin using these updated policies and procedures prior to the 2022 annual report.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

CARB's 6-month submission, and the revised procedures it provided to us, address the issues with the frequency and scope of CARB's planned reviews that we identified with its 60-day response.

60-Day Agency Response

Policies and Procedures for the Low Carbon Transportation Program, FARMER, and CAP Incentives have been updated to include procedures on how staff will conduct and maintain evidence of program oversight by the program administrator/grantee; which staff refer to as desk reviews. Though the number of program administrators/grantees and number of records and is dependent on staffing resources and the risk associated with each project administrator, procedures include necessary steps and timelines to ensure appropriate documented oversight going forward.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

The procedures CARB provided do not implement key elements of our recommendation. They do not establish a formal schedule for conducting reviews of CARB's various programs. As such, the procedures do not make clear how quickly CARB will actually conduct reviews of all its programs and program administrators. In addition, the procedures do not all specify a minimum number of records to review in relation to the programs' size. Finally, CARB's procedures make the timing and scope of the reviews contingent on available resources. The purpose of our recommendation was for CARB to commit to a clear process for performing that review. Until it does so, the recommendation will not be implemented.

All Recommendations in 2020-114

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.