A previous report led this year’s Nevada County Grand Jury to also investigate the county’s contract management with vendors. Grand Jury Foreman Joe D’Andrea says the county has no centralized system, so each county department uses its own approach. He says the county is already aware it’s lacked enough trained staff for quite a while…

click to listen to Joe D’Andrea

D’Andrea says recent reports that the county commissioned revealed shortcomings and uncovered irregularities in two contracts that the county hadn’t realized. He says the county has initiated a study to address some of the problems….

click to listen to Joe D’Andrea

But D’Andrea says no waste was included in the report, and was not actually part of the scope of the investigation. The report says the Great Recession, earlier this century, necessitated cutbacks in staffing. Before that, the Auditor-Controller audited 10-percent of contracts annually. But staffing has not yet recovered, so the county can audit few, in any, contracts.