Dear Editor
The city of Oxnard invests excess cash in various instruments. Included in these investments are the excess reserve cash held by a select few of the Landscape Maintenance Districts (LMDs). Via city-supplied responses to multiple Public Record Act (PRA) inquiries, a history of investment and interest earned data has been collated into a spreadsheet. This history includes January 2022 up to and including June 2023.
The city supplied a complete listing of all cash investment accounts via PRA 3994-093023. This list shows a cash balance of $403,717,711.80 as of 31 December 2022. Each investment account dollar value (both positive and negative values) was entered into an Excel spreadsheet, with all data entry values verified for accuracy. The net cash value (positive minus negative) was $404,632,577. This is a delta of $914,865, nearly $1M! The city refuses to explain this discrepancy.
Per the same PRA, the city claimed the budgeted interest was $2.5M based on these cash account investments. Those cash accounts with a negative account balance were attributed with a negative interest value. The city claimed that ‘the negative balances were treated as short-term borrowing to support short-term cash flow needs for those funds.’ How does attributing or…
