Butte County Grand Jury
• 2004-2005
Butte County 2004-2005 Grand Jury Final Report*
⚠️ 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 16 findings
F1
The impact of the Kronos WCTS on Butte County government is significant.
F2
The Kronos WCTS operates in a real-time environment and so employees are reminded automatically for time data maintenance. The need for estimation is greatly reduced.
F3
The WCTS requires that department management audit employee input prior to its submission to payroll, minimizing the opportunity for inaccuracies or fraud. Because the system is centralized, managers and payroll personnel have access to time keeping records at all times.
F4
The WCTS provides better accountability and is more accurate than the previous varied payroll systems. Employees are now active participants in the payroll process.
F5
Office of the District Attorney's staff believe that insufficient effort was made by the Office of the Auditor-Controller during the initial study to accurately assess the needs of individual county departments. In some cases, initial contact at the department level was only done at the time of system implementation, which likely contributed to delay. 2004-2005 BUTTE COUNTY GRAND JURY
F6
According to Auditor-Controller staff, the entire system will cost $200,000 over budget including the purchase of additional licenses. This may have been prevented had management from the various departments been involved from the beginning.
F7
Kronos training of county employees consisted of instructing them how to train, but not how to use the system.
F8
All of the VMH are far larger than the needs of the veterans groups using them.
F9
No plans are in place to make the halls more self-sufficient or to make them less of a drain on the general fund.
F10
We found no individual who could demonstrate any knowledge of possible grants from state or federal sources, which may be available to help the county address, the issues facing these halls.
F11
Some personnel legal actions over recent years have resulted in additional damage to the reputation of the district. Moreover, there was at least one legal action which was lost by the district and for which it has yet to make restitution to the injured party. It is apparent that this district continues to allow management to behave outside the norms of acceptable employment practices and to push legal boundaries. It has apparently not learned lessons from its prior mistakes.
F12
Testimony reveals that, based on excessive targeting of older, more costly teachers, interference with union activities, display of sexually explicit photographs, and frequent poorly justified disciplinary actions taken against 2004-2005 BUTTE COUNTY GRAND JURY "Hit List" teachers, recent conduct by the district administration has opened the district to additional legal claims.
F13
Current teachers demonstrate daily courage by showing up to serve the needs of their students and are doing an adequate job despite the hostile environment. This jury believes that teachers are the core of the educational process and that teachers who have long term experience are a valuable commodity that ought not be abused or squandered.
F14
The trustees of the school board apparently do not have a mechanism to effectively monitor grievances and complaints against the district.
F15
The principal of the elementary school and her administration were not found to participate in or follow or be affected by the high/middle administration.
F16
Based on the results created by this administration, is reasonable to conclude that they have exactly the educational environment they intended.
Recommendations 14
-
R1Investigate methods to update or replace the interface between the Kronos WCTS and the Pentamation Accounts Payable System to accomplish seamless time accounting and payment.
-
R2Auditor-Controller staff should work with the Butte County Information Systems staff to configure the Kronos WCTS and other existing systems so that they work together and that all new and current systems are utilized to their fullest capabilities.
-
R3Any additions or adjustments to the WCTS should require coordination between the office of the Auditor-Controller and the users, before implementation.
-
R4Some reports generated by the WCTS must be modified prior to being sent to the State of California. As these reports are not unique to Butte County it is felt that Kronos should resolve this issue.
-
R5Insist on more productive customer support from Kronos so that the WCTS can be used as efficiently as possible.
-
R6Code 39837) Rental or lease of personal property such as caps and gowns used by
-
R7seniors in graduation ceremonies. (Education Code 38119) Deposit for band instruments, music, uniforms and other regalia, which
-
R8school band members take on excursions to foreign countries. (Education Code 38120) Fees for community service classes. (Education Code 51815)
-
R9Actual costs of duplication for copies of public records, student records or
-
R10other materials. (Government Code 6257, Education Code 49063) Parking on school grounds. (Vehicle Code 21113)
-
R11Food sold at school subject to restrictions specified in law. (Education
-
R12Code 38080-38085, 49490-49493, 49500-49505, 49530-49536, 49550- 49560; Code of Regulations, Title 5, Section 15500-15501, 15510, 15550- 15565) Fines or reimbursements for lost or damaged district property. (Education
-
R13Code 19910-19911, 48904) 2004-2005 BUTTE COUNTY GRAND JURY REQUIRED PHYSICAL EDUCATION UNIFORMS CHICO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT Reason For Visit/Investigation The Grand Jury received several citizen complaints regarding junior and senior high schools in the Chico Unified School District (CUSD) charging for required physical education (PE) uniforms. The complainant asked why some parents had to pay while others were eligible for fee waivers and why students were being graded down for failure to wear the required uniform.
-
R14Hiring staff to fill vacancies should be given a very high priority. Absolute minimum requirements should be established and Butte County should adequately fund the training of new and existing employees to maintain any and all professional certification requirements. 2004-2005 BUTTE COUNTY GRAND JURY Exhibit A STATE OF CALIFORNIA Governor's Office of Planning and Research Sean Walsh Arnold Schwarzenegger Director Governor May 16, 2005
Commendations 1
-
CM1In December of 2004, after the Grand Jury letter and subsequent interview, the Principal of PVHS immediately made a school policy adjustment. The new policy prohibits requiring students to purchase the school wide PE uniform as long as the student brings a change of clothes to use for physical education exercises. The PVHS Principal published a letter to parents in the December of 2004 issue of Viking Voice as well as article in the December of 2004 student newspaper, The Saga. The Grand Jury believes that this principal clearly understands the law with regard to this issue and we applaud his quick decision-making.
Agency Responses 1
Government agencies' official responses to this report's findings and recommendations. Click on a response to see the structured breakdown.
* 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.