Report 2020-612 Recommendations
When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information and periodic reports regarding their progress in implementing the report’s recommendations. For audits conducted under the State High Risk Audit Program, these periodic reports are due every 90 days from the issue date of the report until such time as the State Auditor directs the auditee otherwise, according to title 2, section 61024 of the California Code of Regulations. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below, is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor's assessment of auditee's response based on our review of the supporting documentation.
Recommendations in Report 2020-612: California Department of Public Health: It Could Do More to Ensure Federal Funds for Expanding the State's COVID‑19 Testing and Contact Tracing Programs Are Used Effectively (Release Date: April 2021)
| Recommendations to Public Health, Department of | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Recommendation | Status |
| 1 | To better leverage contact tracing as a tool to limit the spread of COVID-19, Public Health should, by May 15, 2021, reevaluate its contact tracing plan and update it to incorporate technological and medical advances in order to redefine how many tracing staff California needs and for how long it will need them. |
Fully Implemented |
| 2 | To better leverage contact tracing as a tool to limit the spread of COVID-19, Public Health should, by June 15, 2021, create and implement an updated plan, in partnership with local health jurisdictions, to hire, train, and retain the number of tracing staff it determines is necessary to limit the spread of COVID-19, including expanding the pool of reassigned state employees functioning as tracing staff. |
Fully Implemented |
| 3 | To better leverage contact tracing as a tool to limit the spread of COVID-19, Public Health should, by June 15, 2021, and in collaboration with local health jurisdictions, determine what barriers exist to contact tracers successfully identifying and contacting people who may have been exposed to COVID-19. After studying those barriers, it should share best practices with the jurisdictions and encourage them to implement those practices that will be successful at overcoming the barriers. |
Fully Implemented |
| 4 | To ensure that it has all the necessary planning information in place related to the allocations it has made to the local health jurisdictions, Public Health should, by April 15, 2021, review and approve all initial work plans that it has received. |
Fully Implemented |
| 5 | To ensure that it is performing necessary oversight and can provide local health jurisdictions with guidance to improve their activities using the ELC COVID-19 funding, Public Health should, by April 15, 2021, put in place procedures to ensure that it receives all required quarterly work plans and expenditure updates from local health jurisdictions to which it made grants. |
Fully Implemented |
| 6 | To ensure that the State has accurate COVID-19 data and to help mitigate the risks it caused by not having IV&V during the development phase of the CCRS project, Public Health should direct its IV&V consultant to monitor system performance and Public Health's data validation efforts and to provide regular reports on the system's reliability until the IV&V contract expires in December 2021. |
Fully Implemented |