Report 2010-101 Recommendations

The department should continue with its efforts to implement regulation changes that will require beverage distributors to register with the department and to notify the department if another entity has agreed to report and make payments on behalf of that beverage distributor.

To improve management of its fraud investigations, the department should take the following actions: Formalize the approach used to analyze recycling data for potential fraud and develop criteria for staff to use when deciding whether to refer anomalies for investigation. Because DORIIS will be a central data source for recycling activities once it is implemented, the department should continue with its plan to automate the review of recycling data within DORIIS to identify potential fraud.

To improve oversight of grants and ensure that the intended value is received from the grant funds it awards, the department should do the following: For recipients of market development grants that are unable to meet the goals of their grants, maintain contact with grantees after the project is completed to determine if the goals may ultimately be achieved.

The department should weave benchmarks, coupled with metrics to measure the quality of its activities, into the strategic plan for the beverage program to allow it to better measure progress in meeting goals.

The department should ensure that the strategic plan incorporates all relevant activities of the beverage program.

To improve its forecasting of revenues and expenditures for the beverage fund, the department should implement a new forecasting model in time for it to be used for the fiscal year 2011–12 Governor’s Budget.

To improve its forecasting of revenues and expenditures for the beverage fund, the department should place appropriate controls over the forecast model, including having management review the reliability of forecasting results before they are used and monitoring the reliability of forecast results against actual figures on a monthly and yearly basis.

To improve its forecasting of revenues and expenditures for the beverage fund, the department should ensure that the contingency reserve for the beverage fund does not exceed the statutory limit specified in the Public Resources Code.

To improve its forecasting of revenues and expenditures for the beverage fund, the department should continue with its efforts to hire an economist to lead its forecasting efforts.

To improve its forecasting of revenues and expenditures for the beverage fund, the department should ensure that the actual fund balances of the beverage fund in future governor's budgets reflect actual revenues and expenditures from its accounting records.

The department should better follow its three-year plan to audit beverage distributors. Steps to accomplish this goal could include performing an analysis of risks that could result in underpayment of redemption payments or implementing policies to terminate audits after the department’s initial assessment of a beverage distributor concludes that it is unlikely that an underpayment exists.

To avoid exceeding the statute of limitations for collecting underpayments, and to bill for collection sooner, the department should strive to complete the fieldwork for audits in a more timely fashion. Further, the department should implement policies to shorten the time needed to review completed audits before billings are made, and should also develop policies to expedite reviews when an audit identifies a significant underpayment.

To improve management of its fraud investigations, the department should track all fraud leads that the investigations unit receives and track the disposition of those leads, as well as document the reasons for closing leads without an investigation.

To improve management of its fraud investigations, the department should continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the fraud prevention project and whether it is a cost-beneficial activity.

To improve oversight of grants and ensure that the intended value is received from the grant funds it awards, the department should perform site visits to ensure that grantees are progressing on projects as expected.

To improve oversight of grants and ensure that the intended value is received from the grant funds it awards, the department should require that grantees provide regular status reports that sufficiently describe their progress toward meeting the goals of the grant.

To improve oversight of grants and ensure that the intended value is received from the grant funds it awards, the department should more closely scrutinize the risks associated with proposed market development grants.

To improve oversight of grants and ensure that the intended value is received from the grant funds it awards, the department should make determinations to approve grant extension requests in a timely manner.

To improve oversight of grants and ensure that the intended value is received from the grant funds it awards, the department should implement policies to ensure that cities and counties spend grant funds for recycling purposes by requiring periodic reporting of expenses or reporting of how funds were used after the grant ends.