State of California Audits District Incentive Programs

District programs lauded as a shining example

Since 1992, the District has been providing financial incentives for a variety of strategies to voluntarily reduce emissions and improve the quality of life for all Valley residents. In total, the District has provided close to $500 million in incentives from a variety of local, state and federal sources. These efforts have resulted in a reduction of more than 98,000 tons of harmful emissions. The District’s incentive programs have become models for other air districts throughout California.

The District is regularly audited by independent outside agencies including professional accountancy corporations on behalf of the federal government, the California Air Resources Board, the California Department of Finance and the California Bureau of State Audits. These comprehensive and rigorous independent audits focus on every aspect of our incentive programs including our programmatic and fiscal controls. These audits are conducted to ensure that the public funds to which the District has been entrusted are spent appropriately and in the manner in which they were intended. The District welcomes these opportunities to gain valuable feedback regarding our implementation of these critical programs.

Recently, the District’s incentive programs were audited by the state Air Resources Board and the state Department of Finance. This audit included a thorough review of several of the District’s largest and most complex incentive programs totaling more than $215 million over a four-year period.

Overall, the results of the audits confirmed that the District’s incentive programs are fiscally sound and are “efficiently and effectively achieving their emission reduction objectives.” ARB’s audit report concluded that the District is meeting or exceeding all requirements for the expenditure of funds and commended the District for administering the Proposition 1B Lower Emission School Bus Program on behalf of 18 other local air districts.