Everyone is on edge.
In recent conversations about county finances with officials, staff members and outside agencies, everyone chooses their words carefully, speaking with diplomacy to avoid inflaming an already volatile situation.
The tense atmosphere was apparent during the most recent meeting of the Humboldt County Audit Committee, an oversight group that was formed specifically to address rampant dysfunction in the county’s fiscal management, which has devolved into a slow-motion catastrophe of overdue reports, disgruntled county contractors, internal investigations and cross-departmental power struggles.
As you’ll read below, one department head recently told county supervisors she’s never been more worried about the state of the county’s finances. Staffers tell the
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Screenshot from Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting (clockwise from top left):
First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson,
Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass, Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez
and Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone.
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The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors had a relatively short agenda on Tuesday, but they wound up engaged in some lengthy conversations on topics ranging from the county’s finances to its post-pandemic work routines and The Great Redwood Trail. You’ll find our weekly roundup in the paragraphs below.
The bulk of the morning session was occupied by urgent deliberations over the county’s ongoing fiscal management problems, which, over the past two years or so, have been the source of bitter infighting and the subject of countless meetings.
Humboldt County Audit Committee Held Its First Meeting … and the Auditor-Controller was Absent
Members of the Humboldt County Audit Committee with advisory staff and other county employees. | Screenshot of Zoom meeting.
Humboldt County’s fiscal management has been a hot mess in recent months, with chronically delayed reports, payments and other transactions causing headaches for county employees, department heads and outside vendors.
Paz Dominguez. | File image (screenshot).
In an effort to solve some of these problems and perhaps to quell some of the internal strife that has developed around them the Board of Supervisors agreed in February to form an audit committee comprised of county officials and qualified members of the public.