Report 2020-114 Recommendation 15 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 #15 To: Air Resources Board, State

To ensure that it can account for the total costs of its transportation programs, beginning with fiscal year 2021-22 CARB should develop and implement processes to track the administrative costs it incurs to operate each of its transportation programs. After doing so, it should begin including those costs as part of the cost-effectiveness measurements in its annual reports to the Legislature.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2022

CARB continues to implement changes in response to this recommendation. CARB's Administrative Services Division (ASD) created employee timekeeping codes and FI$Cal chart fields to capture programs and functions, tasks, and projects common across all CARB transportation programs. New expenditures, contracts, purchase order, and labor charges are being recorded to specific programs to provide the total costs for each transportation program. ASD implemented a more detailed timesheet coding to better track associate staff time on CARB's various greenhouse gas emission reduction transportation programs with the underlying fees/revenues that fund those administrative costs and is working to finalize fee codes for new fees in each year's budget. That will help CARB better estimate the costs of it incurs to operate each of its transportation programs. In the final phase, ASD is working to identify remaining programs that should be tracked, and which functional tasks, projects, or specific actions are not part of a program but should still be tracked using FI$Cal chart fields.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

CARB previously provided us its new timekeeping codes and confirmed for us that its development of the more detailed timesheet coding it references in its response is still ongoing.

1-Year Agency Response

To better account for the total costs of its transportation programs, including administrative costs, CARB's Administrative Services Division (ASD) requested employee timekeeping and item coding information from each of CARB's Divisions and established 100+ new timesheet and item codes for use beginning with fiscal year 2021-22. Additionally, all new contracts, purchase orders, labor on timesheets, etc. will record costs specific to each program to provide the total costs of transportation programs. The codes were established in FI$Cal and the Tempo timekeeping program used by CARB on July 30, 2021 and were used beginning with the July 2021 timesheets. ASD runs monthly reports for Divisions with transportation programs so they can see program costs and that staff are charging time appropriately. Additional timekeeping and item codes can be developed if necessary. Divisions will use information from the new coding structure when reporting to the Legislature in the Fall of 2022 for the fiscal year 2023-24 budget cycle.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

CARB's Administrative Services Division (ASD) requested Service Location and Labor Code information from each of CARB's Divisions with transportation programs and established 100+ new codes for their transportation programs for use beginning with FY 2021-22. Going forward, all new contracts, purchase orders, labor on timesheets, etc. will be recorded at the program-level of detail ensuring CARB accounts for the total costs of its transportation programs. The codes were established in FI$Cal and the Tempo timekeeping program used by CARB on July 30, 2021 and are ready for staff to use beginning with their July 2021 timesheets. ASD will run monthly reports to send to Divisions with transportation programs so they can see program costs and that staff are charging time appropriately. Additional Service Locations and Labor Codes can be developed if necessary.

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

CARB provided a list of time reporting codes that cover both incentive-based and regulatory transportation programs. To the extent CARB consistently and accurately uses these codes, they will help CARB obtain a better understanding of the actual costs of administering each program and provide the Legislature additional information on each program's true cost-effectiveness. However, because CARB only began using these codes at the beginning of the 2021-22 fiscal year, it has not yet had the opportunity to report on actual costs to the Legislature as we recommended. Therefore, we assess this recommendation as partially implemented.

60-Day Agency Response

CARB has identified the following steps it will take this year to implement the recommendation:

Step 1: Collaborate internally with CARB divisions to identify all transportation programs including establishing lists of those currently accounted for and those that are missing. We have started this step.

Step 2: Process and develop service locations and labor codes. CARB Budgets/Accounting staff will process the templates and develop the codes within FI$Cal and coordinate with divisions to find how these programs should be coded (Reference/Fund/Program). Once established in FI$Cal, work with CARB Human Resources to add the newly established service locations as labor codes in Tempo Timekeeping System.

Step 3: Educate CARB staff on service locations (FI$Cal)/timecodes (Tempo) and how they should be used. This includes: (1) meeting internally with division leadership to discuss the codes and expectations for use from both a labor and an operating expenses and equipment perspective, and (2) meeting with CARB staff that work within transportation programs giving them the newly developed codes and an education about the appropriate uses and vision from their divisional leadership.

Step 4: Send monthly reports sent to Divisions with Transportation Programs. Pull the data monthly and develop reports for submission to divisions. Request feedback on data and track potential gaps with missing information. Develop additional service locations/time codes if necessary based on feedback and program changes.

CARB hopes to have this system in place by the end of 2021.

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

All Recommendations in 2020-114

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.