Photo by Catherine Stachowiak
The board of trustees addressed the public’s concerns about meeting Grand Jury Report recommendations at the Kern River Valley Public Cemetery District meeting, Tuesday, August 13.
At previous meetings, and that day, visitors from the community had expressed a desire to see the issue, as an ongoing item on the agenda, to insure the recommendations are met.
Chairman trustee Harry Schutstz listed, during director’s comments period, the ways the district had worked towards fulfilling the Kern County Grand Jury Recommendations in its 2023-2024 report.
Schutstz said that he wanted the grand jury’s report requirements on the agendas moving forward because the district wanted to fix the issues and show transparency.
“I wanted to just give a recap,” he said listing the ways in which the district had already worked toward fulfilling the recommendations.
He read aloud, “F1. The District would function more effectively with an engaged five-member board.” Schutstz stated, “At this board meeting we have five (trustees.) So we are in compliance.”
Indeed the board had met the criteria for a fifth trustee, introducing that day as the new trustee, Teresa “Kat” Barnum, who attended the meeting in a conference telephone call.
Regarding the second recommendation for the district to schedule board meetings monthly, to stay current on issues and keep agendas at a reasonable length, Schutstz said, “We’re now monthly. This is our third meeting monthly. So we’re in compliance.”
As to the third issue the Grand Jury Report addressed, absence of meeting minutes, which were found to be severely behind, leaving a lack of transparency, Schutstz said, “We are current on the minutes so we are in compliance.”
With regard to F4 in the Grand Jury’s findings, the failure of some trustees to remain current on required training, which had caused the district to be non-compliant, the chairman trustee said, the district was already in progress. Trustee Mike Ryan had almost completed his training and Kat Barnum was in the process of finishing hers that day.
Pertaining to F5, where the report said that the board had been negligent in securing and overseeing personnel to maintain financial audits current, having caused the district to become delinquent in mandated County and State filings; Schutstz said, “Negligence on county and state mandatory financial audit filings, I’m saying that we are in progress on that.” The press notes that the board had, in recent months, brought in a CPA to bring these filings up to date.
As for number F6, wherein the Grand Jury report said that the policies and procedures generated from the CSDA template are not specific enough to the KRVPCD and could cause misinterpretation by the board; Schutstz said, “I’m saying that the board should review that yearly, possibly even have a committee, to review that before we move forward on that.”
As to the number F8 oversight of payroll in the Grand Jury report recommendations Schutstz said he thought that issue was resolved. District Manager Orion Sanders said, “This is one of the recommendations I made as far as the board having a treasurer. That the board treasurer would oversee that, and it’s not coming from staff, that way it takes it out of staffs’ hands and the board treasurer would be responsible for reviewing and managing that. So as soon as you (the board of trustees) decide whether to appoint a treasurer to handle those duties so it would be separate from staff…” The board planned to address that issue in the near future.
As far as the district’s administrative office being under staffed in number F9 of the Grand Jury Report, causing delinquencies on financial audits, board meeting minutes, and website updates, former trustee and temporary administrator John Blythe said, “It’s all been processed. Stacy (Stivers- office clerk) is hired now too.”
Sanders explained to the observers, “What we did was we managed to take the current salary budget and divide that up a little bit to make sure that we had separate duties for each one, so that there’s not one person trying to do all of it. Tammy (Ashlock) is specifically responsible for answering the phones, dealing with walk-ins and burials. Stacy is doing the financials.”
Regarding F10 in the Grand Jury Report, which addressed excess allotted for additional staff, $15,000 for two years, in the budget, Sanders told the board that tapping into the whole thing, dividing up salaries and duties, enabled the district to “tap into about $6,000.”
F11 in the Grand Jury report mentions poor office space and meeting space. Staff had recently cleared out a storage room, which was spacious enough for the monthly meetings, leaving more room in the office for employees and visitors. Sanders said, “We wanted to make sure that there was a separate space for that. Consultations can be done in here, separate from the office staff or vice versa.”
F12 in the Grand Jury report mentions lack of transparency on the district website. Schutstz said, that he asked each of the trustees to come up with a short bio of themselves and that once email is set up, each trustee would be assigned emails.
Schutstz said, “So just to let everyone know we’re making progress. So we’re on the other side of halfway in continuing. So eventually we’re going to knock these out.”
