A long-awaited forensic audit of a single year of the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission’s finances uncovered numerous examples of sloppy recordkeeping and budget overspending, but there were no signs of wrongful activity, a consultant told the board Monday night.

Mark Courey, director of forensic services at Wipfli LLC, outlined the report’s findings during a 75-minute presentation and subsequent discussion that painted an organization where overspending was rampant and budgets ignored.

The forensic audit was requested by Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno, in November 2024 after he made public for the first time that the organization was “hemorrhaging” money and had spent down its reserves, leaving it on the verge of having to shut down. Arambula had taken the seat on the commission formerly held by his mother, Amy Arambula.

Fresno EOC operates a number of social service programs, including Head Start, WIC, the Local Conservation Corps, and food and transit services. The organization was founded in the 1960s as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

The EOC board voted in December 2024 not to renew the contract of chief executive officer Emilia Reyes and in early 2025 to hire Wipfli for the audit.

Budgets Ignored

According to the Wipfli  presentation Monday, “Testing revealed no evidence of abuse,” while “pockets of the organization didn’t understand or weren’t mindful of budgets.”

The audit reported that “there was no budget consideration for administrative purchases” in the finance, executive, and administration divisions. Some employees told auditors that they were unaware of what their budget was, or if there even was a budget.

Officials in food services, one of several areas where expenses exceeded revenues, were told not to worry about overspending, said Salam Nalia, a former administrator who was rehired after five years of retirement to help turn the organization around.

“Some programs, specifically food services, were just overspending,” he told the board. “And we were told that the instructions to the food director was to ‘go ahead and spend. We’ll manage it somehow.’ So I don’t know what happened in those five years beyond the fact that the spending was out of control.”

After Reyes’ departure, Nalia and former CEO Brian Angus were hired in 2025 to restructure the organization. Fresno EOC had already shifted $3 million from its health plan reserves and also needed a $5 million loan to keep the doors open.

Fresno EOC burned through $10 million in reserves over a three-year period starting in 2022, said Nalia, now the interim deputy CEO.

If Fresno EOC had not been able to tap the $3 million from the health plan reserves, no bank would have loaned it additional money — not even Self Help Credit Union, the only bank to agree to a bailout, Nalia said.

“If we had not borrowed funds in 2025 from Self Help, after six banks refused us, we would not be in this building because it would have been sold by now,” he said. “So we were in a pretty precarious situation. I don’t know how we got to it, but we were in that situation.”

Nalia said he and Angus were shocked after their return to discover that the Finance Committee no longer existed and that “the budget, especially for admin, was out of control.”

After its financial crisis became public, Fresno EOC underwent significant changes in 2025: Dozens of jobs were cut, benefits trimmed, and there was a tighter focus on spending and accountability.

Arambula: Who Was Responsible for Key Decisions?

While the audit presentation reported on where the organization fell short with its financial oversight, it lacked specifics of who was responsible for the overspending, poor recordkeeping, and for disbanding the Finance Committee.

Reyes was not named in the audit but reportedly played a large role, including in poor recordkeeping. Former staffers told GV Wire last year that she had refused to provide them requested receipts for her credit card purchases. And as CEO from 2020 through 2024, she would have been responsible for the organization’s budgets and spending.

Related Story: Why Did Board Fail to Stop Deficits From Nearly Sinking Fresno EOC?

Arambula, who attended Monday’s meeting remotely, sought to drill deeper.

“Can you help us to understand how the administration had no safeguards in place? Was that a decision that the board made? Was that sort of a board chair decision? Was this a CEO decision? And again, I just want to make sure that I’m highlighting this has nothing to do with our current CEO, Steven Lewis. I’m just trying to see why we would authorize the administration to have no safeguards of our rules,” he said.

Arambula also sought to discover why in 2024, when the Fresno EOC’s financial hole was growing ever deeper, a decision was made to disband the Finance Committee, and who made that decision.

His questions were initially met with long silences Monday evening from the people who are now in charge but were not in charge or on staff when those decisions were made.

Oliver Baines, who served as board chair in 2024 and 2025, resigned after last month’s meeting and has been replaced by the former vice chair, Robert Pimentel. Lewis was hired last year after a national search and is being assisted by Nalia, who is working part-time.

Commissioners Alyssia Bonner and David Ruiz noted that when commissioners attempted to raise questions about spending and the growing deficit, they were fobbed off by staffers.

Ruiz said that after he joined the board in 2023 as the Juvenile Court representative, he tried to get answers about the agency’s finances.

“We were asking a lot of questions, the questions were not being answered. And so there was a lot of confusion, but yet we continued to spend, and everything seemed like we were ahead of the game, and in fact we were misled, we were bleeding money, quite heavily,” Ruiz said.

Don’t Give Up

Dr. Diane Lira, a deputy superintendent in the Office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, was appointed to the Fresno EOC board in 2025 and was elected vice chair at Monday’s meeting.

During the commissioner’s comments at the end of the meeting, Lira encouraged her fellow board members to follow up when they have questions. “It is on us not to give up,” she said.

But it’s clear that the fallout from the agency’s troubled finances could continue for some time. Arambula initially balked at combining agenda items that would give the board leadership, Lewis, and Nalia, the ability to sign contracts, including loans, on behalf of the full board.

Lewis said he would expect the board to understand that as CEO he should have the authority to make certain decisions.

“I believe the CEO gets paid for their judgment. … I sincerely understand your thoughts and process, but I could be very transparent. I get paid for my judgment,” he said.

Pimentel noted that such tasks had previously been delegated to the CEO, but the resolutions on Monday’s agenda were an attempt at transparency.

“This is kind of trying to do it kind of openly. So this is a change for the board and the organization,” he said.

No More Red Ink

After years of turmoil, Fresno EOC’s finances appear to be back on track. According to the board’s financial consultant, the organization ended 2025 with a small operating profit, erasing years of red ink.

The forensic audit noted that credit card purchases, which had been able to bypass purchasing software and built-in approvals, have declined significantly, from 4,955 purchases in 2023 and 4,963 in 2024 to 3,398 in 2025. The size of the purchases also decreased: the audit reported 14 purchases over $10,000 in 2023, but only one in 2024 and two in 2025.