Watsonville, Calif. - The Watsonville Strawberry Festival wrapped up this weekend-- but the questioned remained: Did the City Parks Department make the "cash handling adjustments" recommended by the Santa Cruz County Grand Jury report?
Watsonville has had it's fair share of financial controversy but as far as the 2012 Strawberry Festival goes, our investigation found that the city has the procedures in place to reduce risk to the city and open the fiscal doors to anyone who wants to see.
Ana Espinoza. the Parks and Community Services Director is coming off another successful Strawberry Festival "I believe the city is transparent for the public who'd like to review our procedures."
Questions came up when the 2011/2012 Grand Jury recommended the city implement...written cash handling and tracking procedures. Espinoza says the city pays for the festival through donations and vender fees and that they've always had cash tracking policies in place.
"We've always had good cash handling procedures in place that we've done, but we're always trying to enhance all our written procedures for staff and volunteers who are trained."
The Grand Jury also questioned why the city paid the bands at last year's festival with cash leaving the city open to potential risk.
So we asked did procedures change for the 2012 Strawberry Festival this past weekend?
"For this year the bands were paid by check." says Espinoza
One procedure her department has always used is 'cash balance forms' that are used by all trained staff and volunteers...and said the department always is transparent.
"We're always looking to be safe, fun and efficient and we will continue to do that."
