Report 2010-103R Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2010-103R: Department of Public Health: It Faces Significant Fiscal Challenges and Lacks Transparency in Its Administration of the Every Woman Counts Program (Release Date: July 2010)

Recommendation #3 To: Public Health, Department of

To ensure that Public Health maximizes its use of available funding for breast cancer screening services, it should evaluate each of the EWC program’s existing contracts to determine whether the funds spent on nonclinical activities are a better use of taxpayer money than paying for a woman’s breast or cervical cancer screening.

1-Year Agency Response

Public Health provided members of the Legislature with a briefing on the EWC program on November 5, 2010. During that briefing, Public Health reported that it had renegotiated its contracts with many of the regional centers that had previously provided support services to the EWC program. The result of these renegotiations often reduced the total amounts to be paid to these contractors. For example, Table 4 of our audit report shows that the contract amounts for these regional centers, which expired on June 30, 2010, varied between $332,000 and $489,000 per year. In its November 2010 briefing, Public Health informed members of the Legislature that the budgeted amounts for each of these contracts for fiscal year 2010–11 had been reduced to roughly $200,000 per year. In its one-year response to the audit, Public Health reported that it has completed its review of the EWC program’s remaining contracts and has reduced the funds committed to one of its contracts with the San Diego State University Research Foundation by nearly 50 percent. (2012-406, p. 84).

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2010-103R

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.