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City of Santa Ana Page 4 Community Development Agency Financial Review Based on our experience with financial reviews and our understanding of the City's desired outcomes, we propose a project consisting of six discrete activities. All activities are described in detail below. Activity 1: Start Project and Review Background Materials UFI will begin by meeting with the City's Finance & Management Services Agency staff to discuss and refine the project scope and agree on a work plan and schedule. In advance of this meeting, we will prepare a draft work plan, which will include specific tasks with milestones and dates. This initial meeting will form the basis of our partnership throughout the project. Prior to the first meeting, we will obtain information from the City's website and prepare a document request for items that are not available on the web. Data that we anticipate needing for this study include the following: Descriptions of department programs and services • Budget details • Information about staffing for each function Organization charts Goals, project lists and work plans • Prior studies / audits that may be relevant • Performance measures • Policies and administrative procedures During this meeting we will also discuss communication processes for each phase of the project. This includes the dialogue between our team and the City, as well as communications with City employees, the executive management, and other stakeholders. We will collaborate with you about how best to keep people informed throughout the project. Following the kick-off meeting with management, we will revise our work plan as needed to reflect what was learned during the initial meeting. Activity 2: Conduct Interviews Next, we will conduct interviews with the department Directors, department managers, other key managers, and general employees. Hearing directly from the people who govern, manage, and operate the City's Community Development Agency programs is a critical early step in learning about the organization. During the interviews, we will ask questions about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) facing the City's Community Development Agency programs. We will seek opinions and information about goals and goal setting, performance accountability, policies, procedures, processes, organizational functions and structure, and other specific elements pertaining to financial management. We will summarize the results of these interviews, noting themes, specific ideas for improvement, and areas for future analysis. We will also interview up to 10 employees. These conversations will be confidential, with employee comments being encouraged on a not -for -attribution basis. In our experience, these discussions will provide useful perspective on those aspects of Community Development Agency financial / accounting procedures that are working well and those that need attention. Frequently, specific ideas for further consideration are also identified in these discussions. This activity further broadens our knowledge of the current situation from the employee perspective and helps to highlight areas for potential improvement from the unique perspective of employees who actually do the work on a daily basis. UFI