SANTA ANA, Calif. — Orange County Supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento are calling Thursday for investigations into the public funding of two nonprofits to provide meals and other services during the pandemic.

Officials with Viet America Society have been chasing down receipts to document its services for an audit. In January, the accounting firm of Buu D. Nguyen issued an analysis that showed about $25,000 in unaccounted funding, but county officials are threatening a lawsuit and demanding the nonprofit pay back about $4.2 million.

The county has also sent a letter threatening litigation against Hand to Hand Relief, which officials say has also failed to provide documentation for about $1 million.

Both nonprofits were tasked with providing meals to needy residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

County Supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento asked the Orange County District Attorney's Office to investigate, as well as state and federal authorities.

Attorney Mark Rosen, who represents Viet America Society, wrote a letter to county officials Monday saying Nguyen's firm had already performed an audit that was as precise as possible. The audit blamed some of the issues on short-staffing and noted a new chief financial officer had been hired.

The problem, Rosen said, was the nonprofit has been struggling to document every meal delivered.

"They're now trying to get records from people who don't want to deal with the government, who are suspicious of the government because of their experience as refugees," Rosen said of the Vietnamese community the nonprofit serves.

"The county, three years after the fact, has impossible standards now as if there was no pandemic or no one was sick," Rosen said. "It's easy to question all of this in hindsight, but people forget what it was like back then before we had the vaccines."

Many of the agency's drivers were practicing social distancing so did not get the required paperwork to prove delivery of some meals, Rosen said.

"Now the county is saying you should have them fill out a form and make contact," Rosen said. "You're applying standards that were impossible to apply during COVID."

If it comes down to going to court to settle the issue, Rosen said, "We'll call all the delivery drivers and food preparers to show that everything was entirely above board, and that this is basically a political witch hunt at this point."

He added, "They're asking for every single penny on an entirely false assumption that nothing was done. People received the food, deliveries were made."

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do has come under fire because his daughter worked for Viet America Society when he voted on contracts involving the organization. Do has said he would have disclosed the relationship if he felt it was required.

Rosen warned that if officials follow through with a lawsuit it will discourage other nonprofits from responding to calls for services during emergencies.

"The two supervisors who issued that press statement are posturing," Rosen said. "They're not going to get every penny back because it's all been spent."

Foley said the nonprofits had a duty to document the work.

"It's a little late to be complaining when the requirement was to keep track of all this documentation in real time, so they don't have to go back and reinvent what happened," Foley said. "The expectation should have been to track it in real time. There's very specific requirements. All the other vendors could do it, so why couldn't they?"

Foley added, "My patience is as thin as their bookkeeping records at this point. ... I don't really have any use for whining and complaining after the fact."