Santa Cruz County Grand Jury
• 2009-2010
What’s in Store for Stores? “We have to be competitive in the market. It’s like any other enterprise.”*
⚠️ 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 7 findings
F1
Central Stores charges other county departments for storage space used and delivery of stored supplies. Total charges to other departments should be equal to or greater than the cost to operate Stores. If total income is less than the cost, then money from 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses the county general fund must be used to supplement the Stores budget. The following graph details county cost to maintain the Stores facility over and above the revenue generated from billing individual departments for Stores services. Net County Cost for Central Stores Fiscal Year Net Cost 1999-2000 $ 42,854.74 2000-2001 $ 11,259.11 2001-2002 $ 50,202.18 2002-2003 $102,963.65 $ 76,881.37 2003-2004 2004-2005 $ 35,870.59 2005-2006 $ 63,996.81 2006-2007 $ 79,319.90 Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – DISAGREES Net cost shown in the above table is reversed. There is no net county cost for Central Stores. Salaries and benefits as well as services and supplies are less than revenues produced. Total charges to other departments are greater than the cost to operate Stores and result in annual Net County cost savings.
No recommendations for this finding
F2
Purchasing orders large quantities of items the County needs, such as copy paper and canned and dry goods for the jails, to take advantage of volume price discounts. The items are stored until they are requested by and delivered to a department. Inventory items are done by hand and cannot be viewed on computers within other county departments. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – AGREES
No recommendations for this finding
F3
A single vender contractor sells the same supplies at a similar cost and delivers in an as needed time frame. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – DISAGREES Periodic checking on bids for stored products show that it costs more for a supplier to drop ship products on an as needed basis. This is due primarily to the increase in storage and shipping costs, and does not result in cost savings for the County. 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
General Services should research options to purchase food and supplies on an "as needed" basis from private business. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – REQUIRES FURTHER ANALYSIS Purchasing will continue to monitor commodity pricing with options for storage and/or drop shipping, which will be considered in future bids for restocking. An element of any consideration of such awards will be an analysis to determine the actual cost advantage to the County to have product drop-shipped on an as needed basis.
F4
Many county departments and agencies have a need for more record file storage space. Without additional file storage racks at Stores they cannot be properly accommodated. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY AGREES Additional storage racks are planned for a future budget cycle, resources permitting.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
General Services should divest some stored items that are unlikely to be used again and invest in file box racks; or discontinue the Central Stores operation altogether and contract with the private sector instead. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors - REQUIRES FURTHER ANALYSIS Due to the financial situation facing the County, it is not feasible at this time to conduct the necessary study and purchase required equipment for the expansion of the records retention area. In the future, modernizing the Records Retention Program will be a priority when funding becomes available. 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses
F5
Because of the security needed to safeguard ballots and sophisticated voting machines, the County Clerk Elections Department decided to relocate them from Stores and lease outside commercial space rather than improve the county facility. The leased space is secured with building locks, chain link fence, internal room with key pad locks and monitored security cameras and also has a temperature controlled environment to protect ballots and computer voting machines. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – AGREES The County Clerk notes that the facility itself stays sufficiently cool for the storage of the voting equipment and therefore did not require additional temperature controls.
No recommendations for this finding
F6
In May 2006, the County signed a ten-year lease for 6,500 sq. ft. of commercial storage space. The lease was amended in March 2008 for an additional 2,600 sq. ft. Total rent is $6,765 per month, or $81,180 per year for the next 3 years. The lease includes annual increases in monthly rent beginning in July 2011. The cost of tenant improvements on the leased space totaled about $107,200 of which $100,000 was recuperated from the Help America Vote Act which is a federal law passed in 2002. One section of the law established a grant program for payments to states to improve election administration. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – AGREES
No recommendations for this finding
F7
Warehouse space is currently being used to store outdated equipment, 20 year-old wall partitions, and ruined 100-year-old County Recorder books. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – PARTIALLY AGREES Departments purchased reusable partitions in order to have reconfigurable workspace to meet current and future needs within their changing environments. Departments utilize these parts in order to make changes with minimal cost; disposal of the extra parts or outsourcing their storage would only increase costs. The damaged Recorder Books may not be destroyed by law and must be retained and restored as funds allow. 2008–2009 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Final Report with Responses Conclusions
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
The County should consider moving items stored in the warehouse to smaller leased space or other available space and using the building as a Sheriff's Office law enforcement training facility or for another needed county function. Response: County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors – WILL NOT BE IMPLEMENTED Based on the cost savings obtained by buying in bulk and the convenience of storing confidential items on site, the warehouse operation is currently cost effective. However, improvements, such as increasing on site records retention area and implementing computerized inventory control, will be considered as the County's financial situation improves. Responses Required Note: The County of Santa Cruz General Services responses were included in the responses from the Board of Supervisors and are identified as responses from the Board. Respond Within Respondent
Conclusions 4
-
CL1Central Stores is inefficiently using warehouse space.
-
CL2Central Stores uses outdated record keeping.
-
CL3Items that can be cost-effectively supplied by private business on an as-needed basis are instead being ordered in bulk and stored for months before being used.
-
CL4The same $100,000 granted under the Help America Vote Act to improve the rented storage space could have been used to update the County-owned warehouse for storage of elections supplies and equipment.
No Responses Found 1
Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.
Santa Cruz County
County
* 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.