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Extracted from Consolidated Report
This investigation was originally published as part of a larger consolidated report containing multiple investigations. View the consolidated PDF for the complete document.
El Dorado County Grand Jury
• 2014-2015
EL Dorado County Grand Jury 2014-2015 Board of Supervisors Neglects Human Resources Case Gj-14-07 In the course of a
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings 16 findings
F1
El Dorado County does not follow generally recognized best practices for Human Resources.
F2
El Dorado County does not have an Employee Policy Manual.
F3
The HR Department has no mandated training for employees appointed to supervisory positions.
F4
The County is not in compliance with requirements that employees be trained in employment rules and practices. Department directors report that new employees are not given adequate training on county policies but instead are merely given a stack of policies and required to sign an acknowledgement of receipt of those policies.
F5
No effort has been made to comply with AB 2053 requirements. That effort is on hold while a new staff member is trained. In the meantime, staff and supervisors are not complying with it and other statutes mandating specific training. However, the legal requirements continue. They are not on hold.
F6
Department directors report using the Human Resources Department staff as little as possible, both when recruiting staff and when dealing with employee discipline or complaints. Instead, they rely on their own expertise or that of County Counsel.
F7
Failure to strengthen the Human Resources department has resulted in personnel issues being handled inappropriately by managers and supervisors who are not fully informed of their obligations under California employment law.
F8
Members of the Board of Supervisors fail to comply with the legal requirement to notify the HR Department when they become aware of alleged unlawful activity against one of their employees.
F9
Employees fear that a complaint submitted to the HR Department will not be kept confidential and they may be subject to retaliation. The HR Director acknowledged that this a reasonable fear, based upon past behavior.
F10
Inexperience causes the HR department to willingly defer handling of HR issues to County Counsel. This results in HR issues being handled from a defense oriented posture rather than in a proactive solution-seeking management effort. The Grand Jury observed that complaints filed with HR were investigated solely from the point of view of whether unlawful discrimination occurred while ignoring poor management practices.
F11
Investigations of discrimination or harassment complaints frequently reveal poor management practices or other employee misbehavior, but investigative reports are not shared with department directors. Managers are not informed of these issues when they are brought to light in the course of an investigation and, therefore, are unable to take remedial action.
F12
Because County Counsel is acting as de facto HR Director, legal work that could be handled in house is contracted out. Complaints of discrimination or harassment are often submitted to private law firms for investigation at significant cost to the county. There is no policy setting forth criteria or procedures for when an investigation will be handled by county staff or contracted out. While it is reasonable that the investigation of certain sensitive complaints, such as those against the CAO or the HR Department itself, be contracted out, it is unreasonably expensive to contract out the investigation of most complaints. These should be handled by HR staff.
F13
The County spends significant sums of money on outside consultants and attorneys for HR related issues.
F14
The County has spent significant sums of money on private consultants identifying personnel issues but has taken only the initial steps towards resolving the issues identified.
F15
Human Resources and Risk Management were separated to allow the HR Director to develop her skills in human resources management. The two functions are closely integrated and their separation is inefficient.
F16
The County does not have an organization chart accurately reflecting County organization. CONCLUSIONS El Dorado County’s HR Department continues to suffer from rapid and excessive turnover of the Human Resources Director and fails to follow best practices for human resources management. This has made the county unable to recruit and retain the best qualified staff. The County is exposed to significant risk of liability for failure to comply with federal and state employment law requirements.
Recommendations 6
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R1The Board of Supervisors should renew its commitment to comply with the recommendations made by the 2006-07 Grand Jury.
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R2The Board of Supervisors should commit to full compliance with all state and federal employment statutes.
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R3The Board of Supervisors should aggressively seek a new and qualified Chief Administrative Officer.
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R4The Board of Supervisors should appoint a qualified manager of Human Resources.
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R5The Human Resources function should be centralized under a manager reporting to the Chief Administrative Officer.
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R6The Human Resources manager should be responsible for the combined Human Resources and Risk Management functions. The Grand Jury will forward this report to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the State Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the Bureau of State Audits. RESPONSES Responses to both findings and recommendations in this Report are required by law in accordance with California Penal Code §933 and §933.05. Address responses to: The Honorable Suzanne N. Kingsbury Presiding Judge of the El Dorado County Superior Court 1354 Johnson Blvd. South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150 This Report has been provided to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors. The Presiding Judge of the El Dorado County Superior Court requests that responses be sent electronically as a Word or PDF file to facilitate economical and timely distribution. Please email responses to the El Dorado County Grand Jury at: courtadmin@eldoradocourt.org
Conclusions 1
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CL1El Dorado County's HR Department continues to suffer from rapid and excessive turnover of the Human Resources Director and fails to follow best practices for human resources management. This has made the county unable to recruit and retain the best qualified staff. The County is exposed to significant risk of liability for failure to comply with federal and state employment law requirements. Board of Supervisors Neglects Human Resources