What’s at stake in this race

The auditor is Long Beach’s internal financial watchdog. The core of the auditor’s job is making sure public funds are well-managed and spent as intended.

In their reports, auditors can recommend improvements to city departments, find money that’s being left on the table and even uncover fraud that could lead to criminal or civil cases.

Auditors are directly elected by voters and are expected to put out clear, transparent information so residents can see how their taxes and fees are being used.

What does the Long Beach auditor do?

• Audits city spending and revenue.
• Evaluates the performance of city programs and recommends how they can be improved.
• Investigates fraud.
• Reviews contracts, leases and internal city controls.
• Analyzes financial transitions and business deals.

You might know the Long Beach auditor from

• The auditor’s fraud hotline — anyone can report suspected fraud, waste or abuse by city employees by calling (888) FRAUD-07.
• Required annual reports issued by the auditor’s office, evaluating whether the city is accurately reporting how money is spent.
• Recent performance audits that have included whether Long Beach is efficiently spending money to repair city streets and an ongoing audit of its homeless services.

Here are some things the Long Beach auditor doesn't do

The auditor cannot make decisions about how city money is spent, just recommendations the city manager and City Council may act on.

The auditor does not prosecute crimes or bring litigation but provides underlying facts that could lead to them.

Fast facts about the Long Beach auditor 

• To qualify for the office, candidates must be licensed certified public accountants, as required by the Long Beach city charter.
• Auditors are meant to act independently, with the ability to hire and fire their own staff. Their budget, however, is set by the City Council.
• The current city auditor, who is running for reelection, has been in office since 2006. The sole challenger has not held elected office in Long Beach before.

What’s on the agenda for next term

The elected city auditor has the power to set targets for audits. At least once a year, however, the auditor is required to audit the city’s full books for “accuracy and correctness.”

With the federal government recently alleging fraud in Democratic states, including California, the auditor’s job could take on even more importance, either uncovering potential fraud or reassuring Long Beach residents their money is being spent correctly.

An increasing number of Long Beach voters have flagged fraud and waste in city government as a major problem, putting even more pressure on the next auditor to deliver on the promise of transparency and accountability.

What it takes to win

Any candidate who earns more than 50% of the vote in the June 2 primary wins outright. Because there are only two candidates in this race, that vote will be decisive.

The candidates for Long Beach auditor

Laura Doud, incumbent

Doud is a certified public accountant, a certified fraud examiner and a lifelong resident of Long Beach. She also has a law degree. As the incumbent, Doud has served as Long Beach auditor for 20 years.

Laura Doud

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Courtesy Laura Doud

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Doud describes herself as a “tenacious fighter against fraud, waste and abuse.” Her job requires her to act as a type of finance police who ensures local government is spending money efficiently, addressing budget deficits and acting with transparency.

In her own words

“Over the past 20 years, I’ve been very aggressive at going after revenue-generating audits, ensuring that all the money the city is supposed to be collecting, that we are collecting,” Doud said.

These audits help locate and produce revenue that would otherwise fall between the cracks. She said that throughout her tenure, audits have produced more than $350 million in additional funding for the City of Long Beach.

Doud says one of her most lucrative audits was of Long Beach’s oil production tax in 2007. She discovered that oil producers in Long Beach paid significantly lower taxes than they did in other places, so Doud said she proposed a local tax hike. She helped the measure get passed by voters and in turn secured millions in revenue for the city each year. Doud said the money went toward public safety improvements — including hiring police officers and firefighters, and even getting a shiny new red fire truck for the city.

Most recently, Doud completed an audit of the Long Beach Homeless Services Bureau’s spending over the past five years. The goal was to determine if the agency had properly spent a total of $69 million in funding. The audit identified multiple ways the bureau could improve and resulted in Long Beach firing one of its biggest service contractors.

More voter resources:

• Website: CityAuditorLauraDoud.com

Go deeper: 

• Meet Laura Doud: Candidate for City Auditor (My Belmont Heights)
• Long Beach warns of ‘difficult year’ of budget cuts but promises the pain will be short-term (Long Beach Post)
• Lopsided fundraising in Long Beach mayor’s race: No challengers report bringing in any cash (LAist)

Ginny Gonzales, certified public accountant

Ginny Gonzalez

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Courtesy of the campaign

)

Gonzales is a private sector CPA and paralegal. She’s also a retired IRS auditor and has four master’s degrees in different fields of accounting. In 2022, Gonzales ran for the District 9 council seat but lost. Now she’s running for city auditor, she said, because that the incumbent has held the position too long. Gonzalez said best practice is that auditors shouldn’t remain in any one job for more than five years because you need fresh eyes and an outsider perspective.

“We need to break this incumbent cabal,” Gonzales said. “Everyone’s going along to get along”

In her own words

Municipal governments don’t have inspectors general, Gonzales said, so the city auditor needs to be the one policing waste and abuse. To do this effectively, the auditor can’t be close with the people she’s supposed to be auditing.

If elected, Gonzales said, her first priority would be examining the budget — figuring out how to streamline government, find new funding sources and making sure all residents are getting an “equitable bite of the taxpayer dollar.”

Gonzales said she’d conduct an audit on green space, making sure all neighborhoods receive their fair share. She said she would also review income from parking tickets and street sweeping fees to identify whether that revenue is being directly spent in the district it’s collected in. There are also the upcoming Olympics to consider, and Long Beach needs to take a hard look at the projected economic impact of the event, Gonzales said. Details need to be hammered out, like what it’s costing the city to host games and if residents will see any sort of perks — such as a discount on tickets.

Gonzales says when it comes to the city’s unhoused population and critical lack of affordable housing, it’s time for the city to stop “throwing money” at the problem and to really get creative. She said this could mean offering incentives, such as property tax breaks, to people who house disabled residents receiving SSI and SSDI.

“The federal government is failing us — it really is,” she said. “The state and local government has to step up to the plate and do something.”

More voter resources:

• Website: GonzalesForCityAuditor.com
• Endorsements: L.A. County Democratic Party

Go deeper: 

• Compare Your Candidates; Ginny Gonzales (Long Beach Post)

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