Building a Fast Track Under Pressure
SELECTED WORK 03
Under eight months from an audit finding to an adopted drinking water grant program
Division of Financial Assistance, State Water Resources Control Board · Deputy Director · July 2022 - March 2023 · 36 agreements totaling about $174.6 million through Dec. 2025
Situation
In July 2022, the California State Auditor found that the State Water Resources Control Board lacked the urgency needed to assist failing water systems. More than 370 systems serving nearly one million Californians were not meeting drinking water standards, and the time from application to award had nearly doubled. My division administered the funding.
Constraint
This was primarily a process problem, not a money problem. Funding existed; a sufficiently fast route to commit it did not. The standard process incorporated safeguards designed to protect public funds, so an expedited path had to be created separately and adopted publicly by the Board. We also had fixed reporting commitments to the State Auditor, while the division still had to deliver its other funding programs.
Leadership approach
Protected capacity for the work. Two years earlier I had formed a process-improvement work group. After the audit, six people from program, contracts, disbursements, and legal counsel committed substantial time to a six-week sprint, with regular duties reassigned. A sprint only works when leaders make room for it.
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Went to the field before drafting. The team conducted site visits and focus groups with technical-assistance providers, community advocates, advisory-group members, and drinking-water staff to identify where applications actually stalled. We also benchmarked another state department for relevant practices.
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Delivered an early improvement while designing the larger program. Ten weeks after the audit, the Board adopted an expedited avenue for urgent projects under $500,000. The broader team continued developing the full program against public deadlines.
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Made the tradeoffs explicit. The most consequential design decision was eligibility. We included projects for which required due-diligence reviews could be completed quickly and kept more complex ownership structures in the standard process. Those tradeoffs were explained publicly, and the adopted program included a defined period for review and adjustment.
Result
The Board adopted the guidelines on March 8, 2023, three months ahead of the June commitment. Across 36 projects funded through December 2025, the median time from complete application to executed agreement was 175 days, compared with a published standard-process baseline of nine months to one year for that stage. The State Auditor assessed the recommendation as fully implemented, and the Board expanded the program in January 2026.
Urgency works when leaders protect capacity, build on capability that already exists, and establish an expectation that the organization will learn and improve.
EXECUTIVE INSIGHT
What this means for a client
The six-week sprint gets the attention, but the capacity to carry out that kind of sprint had been built over years. When outside scrutiny creates urgency, leaders still need protected staff capacity, a disciplined way to learn where the process is failing, and enough judgment to move quickly without discarding necessary safeguards. The visible result is speed; the enabling condition is an organization prepared to improve.
Information current as of October 2026.
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This case study describes work performed by Joe Karkoski in his official capacity as a California state employee. It reflects his personal account and analysis, not the views or endorsement of the State Water Resources Control Board, any Regional Water Quality Control Board, or the State of California. Agency actions described were taken through collective staff, management, executive, and governing-board processes.