RESpONSE ACCOUNTABIlITy RESpONSE ACCOUNTABIlITy

None of the County Senior Citizens Centers visited by Grand Jury committee members during the first two weeks of March 2010 had been provided these educational posters by the DAAS on reporting of elder abuse. 62 2. When contacted by Grand Jury Committee members on March 18, 2010, Administrators of the DAAS reported that they were unable to meet the October 31, 2009, deadline due to lack of funds to pay for this program. In addition, the person in charge of implementing this program had been on leave and no progress had taken place due to this absence.

Contract workers are assigned a supervisor by Facilities Management. Workers are either accompanied by county employees at all times or have passed a background check before starting work for the county.

Efforts were made by the DAAS to try and obtain these educational posters free through various state agencies, as well as the State Attorney General’s Office, without any success. These posters were finally created in-house and were completed in February, 2010. DAAS personnel started distributing the posters on March 17, 2010, with completion of their distribution to all County Senior Citizens Centers by March 24, 2010.

County Senior Citizens Centers were once again visited by Grand Jury Committee members, including the Victorville, Apple Valley, Ontario, Rialto, Chino, Redlands and Fontana Centers at various times on March 19, 22, 23 and 24, 2010. The 11X17 posters, one in English and one in Spanish, with information regarding the reporting of elderly abuse, had been placed on the bulletin boards at all of these locations. FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT BACKGROUND The Facilities Management Department is responsible for building maintenance activities, custodial services and ground services for county owned and leased buildings and parking facilities. The Department maintains over 3 million square feet of building space in approximately 260 sites. The Department currently is staffed by 118 employees including 16 Supervisors. The Department last year issued approximately 30 contracts for custodial work and 40 general contracts. During investigations by the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 Grand Juries a number of recommendations were made with regards to Custodial Contracts and their compliance. The recommendations included providing adequate staffing to monitor contract compliance, paying particular attention to background checks, periodic reviews of existing contracts, checking license status, establishing reasonable distances that a site supervisor can be from a site, and modifying vendor contracts to allow communications between employees and supervisors to include use of either cell phones or pagers. All of these recommendations have received a response from the county agreeing to implement these recommendations. METHODOLOGY On February 23, 2010 an interview was conducted by committee members with the Director of Facilities Management and the Deputy Director of Facilities Management. The committee was supplied with a Department Organizational Flow Chart that showed the personnel in each division and their Supervisor. The committee was further supplied with Facilities Maintenance Inspection Checklists of all Contract Buildings for the County. These Checklists showed the Building, Address, Date of Check and Rating for the Inspection. The Checklist included checks on Insurances, MSDS, Supplies and Logbooks. FINDINGS 1. The Supervisor of Custodians has been assigned to monitor and review contract compliance. The Department also uses a Quarterly Vendor Contract Checklist to check on work performed by the contracted vendors.