Los Angeles County Grand Jury • 1987-1988

Final Report 1987 -1988*

218 pages Consolidated Report

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⚠️ Aviso de traducción: Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.

⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.

Findings 19 findings

It is of great benefit for the Grand Jury Audit Committee to have early contact with the Audit Division of the Auditor-Controller's Department for the sake of continuity, overview, and identification of possible areas for Grand Jury review.

The Board of Supervisors' Audit Committee progress is gradual, but its successes are obvious. During the 1987-88 year, 80 percent of the audit recommendations have been implemented, 10 percent are in process, and 10 percent are still not implemented. Even though a pay for performance plan, effective July 1987, has stimulated departmental compliance, the Grand Jury recognizes that an important impetus for implementing grand jury recommendations (with which the Supervisors have concurred) and other county audit recommendations comes from the Board of Supervisors' Audit Committee, supported by the Audit Division and the CAO's Special Investigations Unit. COMMENDATION The Grand Jury commends the Board of Supervisors' Audit Committee, the Chief of the Audit Division, Auditor-Controller's Department, and the Head of the Chief Administrative Office's Special Investigations Unit for their resolute and effective approach to overseeing the implementation of audit recommendations in county government. B. CITIZENS' COMPLAINTS Citizens' complaints received by the Grand Jury and referred to the Audit, Contracts and Management Comittee were reviewed by all members. Both committee research, including conducting interviews, and assignment of the complaint to the Grand Jury investigator were used as investigative methods. Letters were sent to the complainants following the completion of the investigations. C. CONTRACTING OF MISSION SERVICES: COURIER MAIL FOCUS/ISSUE The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of contracting courier mail services as they are currently provided by the County of Los Angeles. Specifically, the courier service is a part of the Los Angeles County Messenger Mail and Automotive Services Division, Department of Facilities Management and Communication. The messenger mail services is a "general fund" operation. This means the Messenger Mail Section services only county or county-related departments and is not a revenue generating program. Thus, all its monies come directly from the county's general fund. The feasibility of contracting is determined through examining a series of issues. These issues serve as an evaluation of the ability of the private sector to provide courier/messenger services now performed by Los Angeles County. Briefly, these issues are: • Cost Effectiveness • Legal Authority and Issues • Vendor Availability • Service Delivery • Impact of Contracting Out on Current County Staff • Development of Vendor Performance Measures and Measuring Instruments • Experiences in Contracting this Function in other Public Jurisdictions METHOD OF INVESTIGATING All information and data necessary to perform these analyses was obtained from four primary sources: 1) a literature search and document review; 2) personal interviews; 3) comparison survey with other Southern California counties; and 4) standard cost model as illustrated in the Los Angeles County Fiscal Manual. FINDINGS

The investigation found no vendors providing courier mail service for a Southern California county. However, there are a number of vendors who are interested in bidding on the service within certain cost and service level guidelines.

There is dissatisfaction on the part of other county departments with respect to the efficiency and performance of the Messenger Mail Section.

A dissatisfaction exists with regard to the limited resources the county has allocated to the Messenger Mail Section in terms of staff and vehicles.

The county would have only indirect control over the level of service provided by private vendors than existing public personnel.

Past contracting out of county services has resulted in some staff layoffs.

Contract vendors bids are evaluated, in part, on whether they plan to hire county personnel into their contracted service operations.

County policy is not to layoff full-time county employees without some assistance in finding other county employment or negotiating an arrangement for county employees to work for the contract vendor.

F10

The county does not formally evaluate its own courier service performance. There are no job and/or service level measuring instruments used in evaluation efforts of the Messenger Mail Section, thus making possible contract monitoring a difficult task to accomplish.

F11

Generally, all counties seem to be targeting 24 hours as an appropriate mail turnaround time. With the cost of United States postage continuing to rise, bulk mailing and presorting services cause a reduction in the United States postal rates that the county must pay. Thus, these services are becoming essential for budgetary reasons. Some counties have found contracting out for these special services to be advantageous.

F12

The Grand Jury recommends that the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Pomona conduct a study to determine the overall low-to-moderate income housing needs of the entire community and prepare a documented plan to assist the community in addressing this need.

F13

The Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors lobby for legislation that requires redevelopment agencies to develop a specific plan for the use of housing set-aside funds, before revenues can be raised through either tax increment or bond financing.

F14

The Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors conduct a survey of selected redevelopment agencies to determine if agencies are improving, replacing, or increasing housing stock for very low-, low-, and moderate-income households. NOTE: For the full text of this contract audit report, see the bound volume, available in Grand Jury Offices. F. COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCIES: IRWINDALE FOCUS/ISSUE As contract auditors for the 1987-88 Los Angeles County Grand Jury, Deloitte Haskins & Sells was requested by the Government Operations Committee to review community redevelopment agencies. The City of Irwindale Community Redevelopment Agency's $395 million bond issue that was sold to finance the construction of a waste-to-energy facility which was never built was selected for review. This bond issue was selected for review as a result of citizen complaints, newspaper reports, and a District Attorney's Office investigation of conflict-of-interest allegations. The committee expressed concern centering on potential mismanagement and misuse of funds. This review of the $395 million bond issue that was sold in 1984 and then prematurely retired in 1987 was undertaken to address the following concerns: • To ascertain whether mislabeling of the bond issue was undertaken to avoid state ceilings and approvals. • To determine if the intent of the project was to build a waste-to-energy facility or simply generate arbitrage earnings. • To determine if the project was initially feasible and then ascertain why it failed. • To evaluate requisitioned expenditures from the project funds for reasonableness. • To determine legal ownership of the remaining assets of this project. METHOD OF INVESTIGATING The methodology for this audit consisted of reviewing relevant bond issuance and project related documentation; employing bond counsel to render an opinion on legal and tax issues; and discussions with various persons participating in the project. FINDINGS The above mentioned review revealed that the City of Irwindale Community Redevelopment Agency officials did not actively participate in the management of the waste-to-energy project which was financed by the $395 million bond issue. Once the City of Irwindale officials agreed to provide a site and financing for the waste-to-energy facility, the administration of the project was left in the hands of the developer, Pacific Waste Management Corporation. Pacific Waste Management Corporation officials were confident that a waste-to-energy facility, which would burn up to 3,000 tons of trash a day and generate 74 megawatts of power would receive California Energy Commission approval. However, environmental concerns that the plant's emissions would increase smog and endanger public health ultimately prevented the construction of the facility and led to the premature redemption of the bond issue when the bond counsel, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander and Ferdon, withdrew its tax-exempt opinion of the bond issue. The following recommendations will assist the Irwindale Community Redevelopment Agency in establishing policies and procedures which will assist them in the development of future projects.

F15

The county receives monies for administrative costs from a County Services Block Grant Title XX. However, the county cannot run the IHSS Program adequately on the money they receive from the state, so they must allocate additional county funds for administrative costs which are not reimbursed from the state.

F16

In fiscal year 1986-87, the county's share was $7,484,172 with a total IHSS Program allocation of $174,037,406.

F17

There is a pending lawsuit to determine who is the employer of the Providers and whether they can be unionized. DH&S did not study this issue at this time.

F18

The IHSS Program itself does not have a recipient abuse process.

F19

DPSS maintains a 24-hour hotline which anyone can call to report abuse of the elderly. Because this hotline services all the DPSS programs, there are no statistics as to what program people are from when they call.

Recommendations 33

R1

The Grand Jury recommends that the County of Los Angeles conduct a thorough financial analysis of the messenger mail services costs to determine an exact cost for the service. This would include all costs as outlined in Proposition A contracting model, as well as identifying the costs that other county departments incur when supplementing the Messenger Mail Section services.
R2

The Grand Jury recommends that, following determination of cost feasibility, policies, procedures and certain county ordinances be revised by the County Board of Supervisors to allow non-county employees to handle sensitive materials with the requirement that they be bonded and insured.
R3

The Grand Jury recommends that the County identify other bidders to participate in a Request for Proposal or Request for Information process for messenger mail services.
R4

The Grand Jury recommends that the county reevaluate the currently allocated resources of the Messenger Mail Section and adjust for the level of service the departments require. Resources to provide a certain level of service should be assessed in relation to the county department's needs.
R5

The Grand Jury recommends that if this service is contracted out, provisions be made to transfer current full- and part-time staff to other county positions that are compatible with the staff or to the contracting vendor.
R6

The Grand Jury recommends that the county develop specific performance measures and measuring instruments for current messenger mail operations and to evaluate current levels of services using these tools. Once these measures are developed and tested, the Grand Jury suggests that they become the contract monitoring measures for vendor performance evaluation. NOTE: For the full text of this contract audit report, see the bound volume in the Grand Jury Office. D. CONTRACTING MISSION SERVICES: PARAMEDICS FOCUS/ISSUE The feasibility of contracting paramedic services as currently provided by the County of Los Angeles Fire Department is the focus of this investigation. The other two departments which provide paramedic service -- Beaches and Harbors, Sheriff -- were excluded from this examination based on the small size of their paramedic operations. The feasibility of contracting is determined through examining a series of issues which serve as an evaluation of the ability of the private sector to provide paramedic services now performed by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Briefly, these issues are: • Cost Effectiveness • Service Delivery • Contractor Availability • Contract Monitoring • Impact on County Staff and County Programs • Legal Authority and Issues METHOD OF INVESTIGATING All information and data necessary to perform these analyses was obtained from four primary sources: 1) a literature search and document review; 2) personal interviews; 3) an informal telephone survey; and, 4) standard cost model as illustrated in the Los Angeles County Fiscal Manual.
R7

The Grand Jury recommends that the Chief Administrative Officer give immediate attention to morale in internal services departments and develop a strategy to address job security concerns. NOTE: For the full text of this contract audit report, see the bound volume in the Grand Jury Office.
R8

The committee interviewed Mr. Michael P. Judge, Deputy Public Defender, Division Chief, Central Superior Court, to obtain his opinions on the utilization of the TV arraignment system.
R9

The Grand Jury recommends that the County Sanitation Districts develop financial strategies (i.e., special tax, develop and earmark new local revenue), financing vehicles (i.e., Joint Powers Authority, public non-profit corporation) and evaluate the feasibility of general obligation and/or revenue bonds.
R10

The Grand Jury recommends that the County Sanitation Districts form a public-private task force to study the issue of developing markets for recyclable materials, energy, and biogas.
R11

The Grand Jury recommends that the County of Los Angeles Department of public Works, in the next revision of the County Solid Waste Management Plan, develop more detailed statements on roles and responsibilities for solid waste management; develop quantifiable measures to monitor the revised plans; and develop and present a section on financing, proposed solid waste solutions, alternatives and options.
R12

The Grand Jury recommends that the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works, in the upcoming revision of the County Solid Waste Management Plan, specifically address regional issues and identify a regional strategy for planning and implementing solid waste management solutions.
R13

The Grand Jury recommends that the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works, adopt a less technical approach to presentation of the next County Solid Waste Management Plan. It is further recommended that the county review County Solid Waste Management Plans from other counties for possible presentation formats.
R14

The Grand Jury recommends that the County Sanitation Districts conduct a study to identify the specific and detailed components of the commercial and residential wastestreams. It is further recommended that the study identify the percentage each of the components contributes to their respective wastestreams. The remaining recommendations (#15-28) pertain to the report entitled "Solid Waste Status and Disposal Options in Los Angeles County."
R15

The Grand Jury recommends that the County Sanitation Districts, in conjunction with the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works and the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, take responsibility for implementation of recommendations # 16-28.
R16

The Grand Jury recommends that decision-makers be made aware of possible limitations of the report on solid waste status and disposal options so they can determine whether further information is needed before reaching a decision on future solid waste plans and actions within Los Angeles County.
R17

The Grand Jury recommends that details (including assumptions) of waste volume projections be provided to decision-makers.
R18

The Grand Jury recommends that decision-makers be provided with more details on how remaining disposal capacity was derived.
R19

The Grand Jury recommends that the technical and economic viability of additional landfill diversion alternatives -- being source reduction, compaction, and small waste-to-energy plants -- are evaluated in detail as part of the county's solid waste management planning process.
R20

The Grand Jury recommends that decision-makers be provided with details on derivation of waste quantities in order to allow independent evaluation.
R21

The Grand Jury recommends that potential means for maximizing recycling options are more thoroughly investigated. It is further recommended that such an evaluation include economic incentives to encourage waste separation at its source, especially from commercial/industrial generators.
R22

The Grand Jury recommends thip that a study be conducted of the technical and economic feasibility and environmental issues associated with biogas generation, compost market, and volume reduction aspects of composting. It is further recommended that such a study include consideration of the volume of waste available for composting, apart from garden and yard material.
R23

The Grand Jury recommends that considerable additional information be provided regarding the feasibility of incinerating between 14,000 to 30,000 tons per day, six days (i.e., up to 50 percent) of the solid waste within Los Angeles County.
R24

The Grand Jury recommends that decision-makers be better informed of the technical feasibility and environmental acceptability of landfill expansion as a waste management option.
R25

The Grand Jury recommends that evidence be quickly provided to allow independent confirmation of the waste generation and landfill capacities. It is further recommended that comprehensive studies and implementation measures be immediately commenced to avert the impending shortage of waste disposal facilities if the existing and projected waste volumes and disposal capacities are substantiated.
R26

The Grand Jury recommends that, as part of a comprehensive solid waste management study, a detailed landfill site selection analysis be conducted within the county boundary. It is further recommended that if suitable sites are identified, the land and adjacent buffer zones be preserved for waste purposes via General Plan amendments.
R27

The Grand Jury recommends that, as part of a solid waste management study, economic haul distances be calculated and described in a manner that would allow independent review.
R28

The Grand Jury recommends that further studies be conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the rail haul option to determine if it is, in fact, a viable option. NOTE: For the full text of this contract audit report, see the bound volume in the Grand Jury Office. B. HAZARDOUS WASTE FOCUS/ISSUE The purpose of this study was to collect data on hazardous waste problems facing the county and to evaluate actions being taken by government agencies to solve hazardous waste disposal problems of homeowners and small quantity generators. Newspaper articles have publicized the problems of disposing of hazardous and toxic wastes. Cases of illegal dumping in some remote areas of the county and in poorly policed industrial areas had been reported with alarming frequency. METHOD OF INVESTIGATING The Environment Committee collected data through the following committee activities: • The committee was briefed by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works staff on the Los Angeles County Hazardous Waste Management Plan. • Attending a working session of the Los Angeles County Hazardous Waste Management Subcommittee. • Attending a working session of the Los Angeles County Hazardous Waste Management Advisory Committee. • Attending public hearings on the Draft Los Angeles County Hazardous Waste Management Plan (CoHWMP) and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in the Harbor area and in the San Fernando Valley. • Reviewing selected portions of the Draft CoHWMP. • Attending public hearings on the California Thermal Treatment Service Proposed Incineration Project planned for Vernon in December and January, and reviewed a summary of the Bright and Associates Report on Environmental Risk Assessment for the project. • Interviewing a member of the Environmental Crimes and OSHA Unit from the District Attorney's Office and a representative with equivalent responsibilities from the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office. • Touring the BKK hazardous waste landfill site in West Covina to observe the closure requirements imposed on such facilities. • Reading numerous articles relating to hazardous waste problems printed in Los Angeles County newspapers and technical journals.
R29

The Grand Jury recommends that the Assessor's office investigate the expansion of the prohibition on appraiser real estate sales to include the entire state.
R30

The Grand Jury recommends that the Assessor revise the Code of Ethics' procedures concerning incompatible employment to more accurately reflect actual procedures and provide these revisions to field supervisors so that they are aware of the procedures if an incident should occur.
R31

The Grand Jury recommends that the Assessor's Office reestablish the Ethics Committee but delegate its day-to-day responsibilities to the Internal Audit Division. It is recommended that the committee serve as a management oversight body and should meet semi-annually to review current policies, and verify that appropriate procedures have been carried out.
R32

The Grand Jury recommends that the ethics procedures be explained to staff during a one-time, in-house training session and be introduced to new hires as part of training and orientation.
R33

The Grand Jury recommends that the Assessor establish written procedures for recording, monitoring and resolving telephone and mail inquiries on ethics issues and that the Assessor establish a formal procedure which would provide employees with a confidential mechanism to report breaches of the Ethics Code. A number of these recommendations require the cooperation of 85 cities as well as other county departments and the State Legislature and are not under the influence or jurisdiction of the Assessor. NOTE: For a copy of the full text of this contract audit report, see the bound volume in the Grand Jury Office. H. CITIZENS' COMPLAINTS FOCUS/ISSUE The Government Operations Committee received, reviewed, and took appropriate action on complaints from citizens as they related to the committee's areas of responsibility. METHOD OF INVESTIGATING Upon receipt from the foreman of a citizen's complaint, a letter of receipt was sent to the complainant, acknowledging the complaint. Committee members read and reviewed each complaint, requesting additional information if necessary. When appropriate, the committee obtained the assistance of the Grand Jury legal advisor and an investigator from the District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation. A final review based on all information was performed and a letter of disposition sent to the complainant. The chair then completed the Disposition of Complaint form, providing the appropriate background information, areas studied and reason(s) for the disposition. The form was given to the foreman who logged it in the Disposition of Complaints Log Book.

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.