There could be changes coming soon on how Orange County Supervisors publicly track their discretionary spending in the wake of my last column looking at how much public funds politicians get to spend on their own. 

Nearby counties in Southern California have much more liberal policies governing how much public funds county supervisors can direct on their own to their constituents. 

Orange County historically kept a much tighter reign on those funds but the COVID pandemic changed that – putting about $13 million in one-time funds in the hands of Orange County Supervisors. 

[Read: Santana: Should Elected Officials Get To Spend Public Money Themselves?]

Before that, supervisors received only about $200,000 to spend in their districts – coming out of their office budgets. 

According to county staff, that limit was set in 2015 and before that, supervisors had no access to discretionary funds. 

Staff noted that funds were originally approved and managed by OC Community Resources.   

Yet with the FY 2025-26 Budget and the centralization of county procurement, the function was moved to the Procurement Office and the budget portion ($200K per Board Office) was moved to each Board office.

With the county strategic financial plan discussions scheduled for December, there’s a lot of curiosity about what kind of long term plans there are for these kinds of discretionary budgets.

Recently, after my column was published, Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua also publicly said at a council meeting that she wants to see council member discretionary spending – pegged at $10,000 by Amezcua from the dais – to also be disclosed to residents. 

So far, OC supervisors haven’t said a word about what kinds of limits they’ll set or how they’ll disclose the spending – something my column found was rather light. 

In my dive into the back up for the county discretionary funds, I found the disclosures to be cursory – really not showing exactly where those funds have been spent but only offering the public very general descriptions of spending and authorizing votes. 

Yet after we published a good look at the funds, Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento agreed there should be better disclosure. 

“I have asked staff to update the information and add additional detail, including the dates of the expenditures and the district office requesting the expense,” Sarmeinto said in an interview. “My goal is to bring clarity to the available information and ensure it is shared in a way that accurately informs the public, not just meets the legal requirements.”

The supervisor criticized the discretionary spending policies during the pandemic, saying they opened the door to corruption. 

“The one-time distribution of COVID-19 funds created major problems,” Sarmiento concluded, “including opening the door to the corruption and abuse carried out by Andrew Do, and it resulted in millions of dollars remaining unspent in some areas. In my opinion, we should have conducted a countywide needs assessment when allocating resources, based on the specific needs of each community.”

Former Supervisor Andrew Do recently began a five-year prison stint after pleading guilty to bribery – tied in part to the allocation of discretionary funds. 

[Read: Former OC Supervisor Sentenced to 5 Years in Federal Prison in Bribery Scheme] 

Sarmiento – along with Supervisor Janet Ngyuen – are the only two current supervisors who haven’t received much in terms of those discretionary funds because their predecessors in office spent most of the one-time funds. 

According to the tally kept by county staff, Sarmiento’s district office was only left with $786,301 to spend out of the $13 million allocated to the district while Nguyen only has access to $150,484.

In a strange twist, Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley got two bites at those funds because after recent redistricting, she moved from the Second District to the Fifth. 

That means she got to spend most of the $13 million allocated to the Second District when she represented that area and now has access to another $1.5 million left in the Fifth District funds as the current supervisor for that district, taking over for former Supervisor Lisa Bartlett, who now serves as a trustee for the South Orange County Community College District. 

To see general descriptions of specific programs or items funded by each county supervisorial district, click here.

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