Report 2020-612 Recommendation 5 Responses

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)

Recommendation #5 To: Public Health, Department of

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.

As of February 3, 2021, internal procedures for collecting progress reports and expenditure reports were in place. These procedures also included a detailed process for reviewing the reports once received at Public Health. Public Health issues reminders to the LHJs on a regular basis to ensure submission of progress and expenditure reports each quarter. Public Health is happy to report that it received all 58 quarter 3 progress reports from the LHJs. Additionally, Public Health was able to utilize the internal review processes and procedures to put together a useful summary of the progress to date at the local level.

Public Health has included the 1) progress report tracking tool, 2) internal review process and procedures, and 3) the summary that was developed from the quarter three progress reports for Enhancing Detection to support the completion of this recommendation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2020-612

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.