Reviewing the Reviews: Tracking County Compliance with Civil Grand Jury Findings
[Note: This is the first of several planned spotlight articles focusing on the 2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury Reports to support our readers’ insight into county governance and administration activities.]
As an independent “watchdog” under supervision of the superior court, a county’s civil grand jury investigates the operations of local government and allegations of public officials’ corrupt or willful misconduct (1). Tuolumne County’s Grand Jury may examine all aspects of county government, the city of Sonora, school districts, and any special districts such as the Tuolumne Utilities District and Twain Harte Fire District, by evaluating the jurisdiction’s existing systems and procedures to measure optimal efficiency and outcomes. Investigation findings and recommendations are published in an annual Grand Jury Report (2).
Each grand jury is tasked with reviewing the prior year’s report to assess compliance by affected offices in responding to its conclusions. County governing boards and elected officials may need to submit a written response to findings in a Grand Jury report. Elected officials are required to respond within 60 days of receiving a report, and governing boards must submit their responses within 90 days of receipt. Responses are to be submitted to the Superior Court’s presiding judge.
Investigative reports and compliance analyses for years 2020-2026 are available on the Grand Jury’s website. Although report formats differ, narratives covering new investigations in general clearly identify findings and recommendations. However, tracking compliance reviews and official responses over time can be challenging due to these minor format differences.
Two June 2026 Tuolumne County Civil Grand Jury Reports note observations concerning questionable practices and operations of the Board of Supervisors (BOS) and the Community Development Department. We attempted to identify and track any prior investigations into county employment and governance across the readily available website links to understand if previous grand juries addressed these issues. Probes into employment and human resource issues and related BOS responses are mentioned in four of the five reports. The table below presents an excerpt from tracking a 2019-2020 finding that County Personnel Rules and Regulations were outdated.
Table 1. Summary of Civil Grand Jury Continuity Reports Involving Personnel Rules and Regulations
| Date of Continuity Report | Finding | Recommendation | Response |
| February 11, 2022 | F.3 The Tuolumne County Personnel Rules and Regulations were last updated in 1997, leaving them woefully in need of an update to current human resource practices. | R.3 The 1997 Rules and Regulations should be updated, approved, and posted to the county website by December 31, 2020. | Updated personnel rules had been drafted, were currently under review, and should be presented to the Board of Supervisors for adoption by March 2021. |
| March 1, 2023 | F1.6 The CAO has not followed through with the commitment to update by March 2021 the Personnel Rules and Regulations adopted in 1997, leaving them out of date compared with current human resource best practices. | R1.4 The Tuolumne County CAO should follow through with the commitment to update the Personnel Rules and Regulations, to be implemented by December 31, 2022. | The recommendation will not be implemented by December 31, 2022. The changes to the Personnel Rules and Regulations will require the County to enter into labor negotiations with respective unions. |
| June 30, 2024 | No follow up on activity regarding Personnel Rules and Regulations, although initial investigations mentioned other human resource issues. | ||
| April 21, 2025 | No follow up in compliance report. The ongoing failure to update Personnel Rules and Regulations was noted in the April 30, 2025 report on “Differential Treatment and Hiring Practices in Tuolumne County Government” with a recommendation (R8-1) to complete a review and revision within 365 days of the report date. | ||
| June 17, 2026 | R8-1 has not been implemented; however, Human Resources and County Counsel have completed their review of the updated Personnel Rules and Regulations. As legally required, the County will confer with its employee associations with the goal for adoption by the Board within the year. | ||
While it may seem that official personnel rules and regulations are nonessential or mere bureaucratic legalese within a local government environment, they are the bedrock of effective organizations that highly value their employees. They establish clear expectations for performance, promote professional management, and ensure legal compliance with applicable federal and state laws. It’s feasible that Tuolumne County could have avoided problems within the County Administrative Office and, in particular, the Community Development Department (documented by grand juries in their 2025 and 2026 reports), had rules and regulations been in place and respected.
Take Action
- Read the Grand Jury Reports.
- Write to your county supervisor and express your concerns.
- Attend Board of Supervisors meetings, observe, and speak up.
NOTES
- “What is a County Civil Grand Jury?” Civil Grand Juries, Civil Grand Jurors Association of California, viewed July 13, 2026.
- “Grand Jury Functions: Local Government Oversight,” Superior Court of California, County of Tuolumne, viewed July 13, 2026.