County Auditor steps in to help Water Resources Agency make accounting more transparent.

At his very first board meeting as a director of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency in 2011, Claude Hoover abstained from voting on a $26 million contract with RMC Water and Environment, which would become the project manager for the failed Regional Water Project. Hoover says he didn’t know enough at the time to make a decision; two months later, longtime director Steve Collins resigned amid allegations of conflict of interest for getting paid by RMC on the side.

It was in the aftermath that MCWRA officials started to realize just how convoluted the agency’s accounting was, as it became hard to tell just how much the county had spent on the failed project (about $4 million), and which funds those dollars had come from.

Hoover, MCWRA’s finance committee chair, hopes to get the fund structure figured out as the agency starts to refill that desal money, thanks to a $3.5 million settlementwith California American Water (the agreement is pending approval by a California Public Utilities Commission judge).

To help, County Auditor-Controller Michael Miller has been attending MCWRA board meetings. “I’m just out there to make sure we can get some transparency, so the people who are paying the bills – the public – understand where their money’s going to,” Miller says.

The agency’s 2013-14 budget outlook projects about a $800,000 deficit. The agency is obligated by a settlement with the State Water Resources Control Board to build new supply projects, but the funding, budget and design for those projects remains to be determined.