City Finances

“Our city budget is much more than an accounting document. It serves as an outline for how the City should best use our limited resources to benefit the community as a whole.”

Rich Lansburgh, Councilman, Woodland City, California

City budgets can be boring but they are important,

Daily Democrat, April 26, 2020.

West Covina’s State Auditor Ranking

Each year, the State Auditor evaluates the finances of the more than 450 California cities so that “Californians can hold can hold their city officials accountable.”

As part of that process, and as authorized by California Government Code Section 8546.10, the State Auditor establishes “a high-risk local government agency audit program (local high-risk program) to identify local government agencies that are at high risk for the potential of waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement, or that have major challenges associated with their economy, efficiency, or effectiveness.” West Covina is ranked a high financial risk city.

West Covina has maintained a remarkably stable "fiscal health" score since the state auditor began publishing fiscal health measurements in 2016-17. Unfortunately, with the exception of Fiscal Year 2017-18, the fiscal health points score has remained in the “High Risk” category.

To review West Covina’s Risk Indicators, click here.

To review California cities ranked high financial health risk, click here

What has changed significantly over those years is the scores of other cities! For example, in 2019-20 three cities—San Gabriel, Montebello, and Anaheim—were not even in the top twenty worse cities the previous year. These cities are now worse than West Covina resulting in West Covina moving from rank 9 to 12.