Fresno EOC chief proposes smaller board amid oversight concerns

Fresno EOC’s new chief is pushing to shrink the agency’s board by nine seats, a change that would rewrite who oversees one of Fresno County’s biggest anti-poverty institutions just as it tries to recover from a near-financial collapse.

Steven R. Lewis has floated reducing the 24-member tripartite board to 15 members, according to April 2026 bylaws committee materials. The current structure gives Fresno EOC eight seats to public officials or their designees, eight to business, public agency and community representatives, and eight to elected low-income target-area representatives. If the board is cut without preserving that balance, critics say the most vulnerable voices in the room would be the low-income representatives, who are meant to bring lived experience from neighborhoods Fresno EOC serves.

Lewis’s argument is procedural and strategic. Meeting materials say attorneys were reviewing the agency’s original 1965 Articles of Incorporation and bylaws, and Lewis has said the existing board size has no strategic basis. Supporters of a smaller board say fewer members can move faster and avoid the kind of diffuse accountability that can stall decisions during a crisis.

Opponents see the opposite risk. Commissioner Matt Rogers warned that reducing the board would shift more control to executive leadership and weaken accountability at the moment Fresno EOC is trying to rebuild trust. The concern goes beyond internal politics. The agency touches food services, Head Start, WIC, LIHEAP, the Local Conservation Corps and transit programs, serving more than 100,000 residents a year across more than 30 programs. Decisions made in board meetings affect services that families across Fresno, Clovis and southeast Fresno rely on.

The governance fight comes after months of financial fallout. Fresno EOC’s reserves of more than $8 million were depleted over five years by deficit spending, and the nonprofit took out a $5 million loan to cover unpaid bills and obligations after only one of eight local banks agreed to lend. A forensic audit later found no evidence of abuse, but it did find sloppy recordkeeping, no budget controls for administration and unmonitored credit-card spending. The board had already disbanded its Finance Committee in 2024 and shifted those duties to the Executive Committee.

Fresno EOC was founded in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, and California regulations still require community action agencies to keep a tripartite board with public officials, low-income representatives and other community members. That makes the current proposal more than a housekeeping change. It is a test of whether Fresno EOC can streamline decision-making without narrowing the public voices meant to hold it accountable.