San Joaquin County Grand Jury
• 2021-2022
• Agency Response
Section 1.1 Financial Matters F1.1 Ordinance 1 and District rules and regulations enable the Fire Chief to control most*
⚠️ 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 and Recommendations 2 findings
F1
1 Ordinance 1 and District rules and regulations enable the Fire Chief to control most financial operations of the District with limited or no Board oversight, thus providing an opportunity for financial malfeasance. The District disagrees wholly with this finding. The District's Board adopts a budget each year in accordance with California law. The District's budget establishes expenditure limits for concerns identified in the budget. The District's Policy 0.35 further establishes purchasing procedures required for District procurements.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
1 By November 1, 2022, the Board of Directors replace Ordinance No. 1 in its entirety by developing, adopting and implementing policies and procedures that clearly define the authority, and limitations thereon, of the Fire Chief and provide greater Board oversight of the operations of the District. This recommendation will not be implemented because Ordinance No. 1 includes additional provisions governing various aspects of the Fire District. Although Ordinance No. 1 was not "replaced in its entirety", revisions and amendments to the ordinance have been implemented to provide greater Board oversight of the operations of the District. On June 16, 2022, the Lathrop-Manteca Board of Directors introduced the first reading of the amended Ordinance No. 1 for the Organization and Rules for the Manteca- Lathrop Rural County Fire Protection District. This amendment incorporated new language to ensure the Fire Chief is administering financial operations of the District in accordance with the adopted budget. Those changes include the following: Section 1. Officers, Article 1 – "The Fire District shall consist of a Fire Chief and as many other personnel as may be necessary for the effective operation of the department as determined by the Fire Chief and authorized by the Fire Board as part of the District's annual budgeting process." Section 2. Duties of the Chief, Article 2. "The Fire Chief shall be responsible for developing a comprehensive annual budget and provide said budget to the Board for review and adoption in compliance with local, State, and Federal Laws, as well as District policy." Section 3. Membership, Article 1 — "The Personnel of the District shall consist of such persons as may be identified and appointed by the Chief. Personnel shall be approved by the Directors based on adoption of the District's annual budget and amendments in compliance with State and Local Laws." The amended Ordinance No. 1 was posted in the Manteca Bulletin on July 16, 2022, and the second reading was conducted at the Regular Meeting of the Fire Board on July 21, 2022. The Board of Directors passed and adopted the amended Ordinance No. 1 on July 21, 2022. The amended Ordinance No. 1 became effective 30-days later on August 20, 2022. To provide additional Board oversight of District financial matters, at their February 17, 2022 regular meeting, the Board established a standing "Finance Committee" and appointed two Board members to work directly with the Fire Chief. This standing committee operates under established bylaws, and keeps agendas and minutes of meeting content/discussion.
F2
1 The Board of Directors was not aware of issues that District employees had with the Chief. Ordinance 1 general conduct rule blocked employee accessibility to the Board. This situation contributed to a hostile work environment. The District Board disagrees partially with this finding. The Board acknowledges that it was not made aware of various concerns involving the former Fire Chief. The District's Rules and Regulations do in fact prohibit (provision has since been omitted) individual employees from contacting Board Members directly with two exceptions: 1) as an authorized representative of the employee group, or 2) as a resident of the Fire District. The existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the District and the Lathrop- Manteca Firefighters Association, International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 4317, did include and presently includes a formalized grievance procedure which includes provisions for complaints, and subsequent disciplinary appeal or arbitration consistent with state labor laws. The MOU for the Members of the Executive Staff, do not currently include such provisions.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
1 By December 1, 2022, the Board of Directors develop, adopt and implement a formal employee complaint policy with procedures for filing complaints, reporting back to complainants, filing appeals and providing accessibility to the Board while adhering to all laws, rules regarding confidentiality. This recommendation has not yet been implemented. More time is necessary to develop and implement a formal employee complaint policy. The Board will work with staff to develop a policy and will strive to present to the Board for approval in November 2022. In an effort to increase communication between employees and the Board, the Board has established (2) two-person ad hoc committees (one committee each for the two employee groups) to maintain regular dialogue with employees. In the absence of the recommended complaint policy, the ability to use the grievance process for L4317 remains. Executive staff can bring complaints to the Board's ad hoc committee.
* 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.