Community Concerns Prioritized, Welcoming a New Assistant City Auditor & Fighting Fraud Takes Teamwork

INDEPENDENT CITY AUDITOR. REPORTING DIRECTLY TO THE RESIDENTS.

Important Update Oaklanders' Recent Concerns Included in 2023-24 Audit Work Plan

Our Office is always listening. We hear your concerns during City Council meetings, community events, and public meetings, and we read your complaints through our Whistleblower Hotline and public surveys. While resources restrict us from addressing all your concerns, we prioritize our work around the areas that matter most.

As you may recall, our Office published our first Annual Audit Work Plan (Work Plan) in August 2023. The Work Plan provides a view into the inner workings of our audit planning process, including how we consider mandated responsibilities, community concerns, limited resources, and urgent issues.

Our Office treats the Work Plan as a live document to allow for necessary modifications. As such, we want to update you on two critical issues the Administration and Oaklanders brought to our attention that we are adding to our 2023-24 Work Plan:

An audit of the City’s application to the State of California’s Organized Retail Theft Grant Program will seek to identify the reasons the City of Oakland failed to apply for available funding awarded to numerous local government agencies in September 2023.

An audit of payments from the City of Oakland to an unnamed City grantee and its fiscal sponsor. The audit objectives are to 1) assess the grantee’s compliance with contract (grant) terms and the City’s Municipal Code and 2) assess the City’s oversight over the grant funds.

I want to thank Oakland residents, City leaders, and employees for reaching out to our Office to share with us the issues that matter most to you. We must continue to connect with all of you, so your concerns are considered and represented in our Work Plan. We always welcome hearing from you. Please contact Dena Shupe if you would like me and my Team to attend an upcoming event or community meeting or would like to schedule a private meeting with me.

Updated Audit Work Plan

Exciting News Announcing Our New Assistant City Auditor

I’m happy to announce that Eduardo Luna has assumed the key role of our Assistant City Auditor. Having known Eduardo for many years, I was thrilled when he accepted my offer to join our Team. He is a highly experienced Chief Audit Executive with over 30 years of performance auditing experience at the federal and local levels of government.

Eduardo began his career as an Evaluator for the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C, and San Francisco. He then spent the next 12 years auditing for the City of San Jose before becoming San Diego's City Auditor in 2008. In 2018, the Beverly Hills City Council selected Eduardo as their city’s first independent City Auditor; he retired from that post in 2021.

Eduardo holds a Master of Public Affairs from the L.B.J. School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.S. in Political Science from Santa Clara University. He also earned a Certificate of Completion for Senior State and Local Government Executives from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Eduardo is an eight-time winner of the Association of Local Government Auditors’ ‘Knighton Award’ for Best Performance Audit in the United States and Canada.

The Team and I are so grateful Eduardo agreed to work with us. We look forward to gleaning from his extensive experience and fresh perspective!

Learn More About Eduardo

Fighting Fraud Takes Teamwork If You See Something, Say Something!

It’s International #FraudAwareness  Week!

Our Office joined the global effort to minimize the impact of fraud, waste, and abuse by reminding City employees about our Whistleblower Program which seeks to detect, defend against, and deter improper activities within Oakland’s municipal government.

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2022 Report to the Nations, receiving tips is the most common way fraud is detected. The same report found, that among organizations with fraud hotlines, 49 percent of substantiated cases originated from hotline tips. In the City of Oakland, a quarter of our tips come from employees.

City employees have special insight into the organization, and are uniquely positioned to bring issues forward that others may not notice—just as our Whistleblower Program Annual Report demonstrates!

The Whistleblower Hotline is also available to Oakland's residents, businesses, and contractors, as well as the broader public. It provides over-the-phone interpretation services in over 150 languages, with access to more than 5,000 interpreters for non-English callers, who are available 24/7, 365 days a year. Whistleblowers can call the Hotline directly (1-888-329-6390) or submit complaints online. Whistleblowers’ information is kept confidential, and whistleblowers can remain anonymous.

With your help, we can continue to foster the highest standards of ethical behavior within the City of Oakland.

So, if you see something, say something!