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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.

Los Angeles County Grand Jury • 1990-1991

1990-91 Los Angeles County Grand Jury

54 pages

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⚠️ 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 6 findings

overview of what they can expect to find in each section of the committee's report. An index is highly useful for finding out quickly what previous grand juries worked

on and wrote about in a given field of interest.

Continuous-tone black and white photographs can be reproduced on the new equipment

with a fidelity approaching that achieved by good-quality halftones printed on an offset press. The cost would be the same as for print copy. The shop has a bindery where books can be collated, assembled and bound as specified.

No saving in time or money is expected from the use of this facility. A relatively new type of binding has become available that uses a flexible strip across 6. 60 the spine of the book. This binding offers advantages over comb-binding in requiring little manual intervention, and being neater, less bulky, and less expensive. The disadvantage is that pages cannot be removed or inserted once a book is bound. Turnaround, dependent on both fluctuating workloads and urgency of need, ranges 7, from three to ten days, with a mean of five days.

60 the spine of the book. This binding offers advantages over comb-binding in requiring little manual intervention, and being neater, less bulky, and less expensive. The disadvantage is that pages cannot be removed or inserted once a book is bound. Turnaround, dependent on both fluctuating workloads and urgency of need, ranges 7, from three to ten days, with a mean of five days.

Recommendations 13

R1

Pasadena Continuation School (PCS) PCS will coordinate three different instructional programs: a) the Continuation High School, b) the Support Study Program, and c) the Center for Independent Study a. The Continuation High School program will be for students who are 16 years old or
R2

Pass on recommendations one and two to its successor grand jury.
R3

59 B. PRINTING AND PRODUCTION PROCEDURE
R4

The Career Education/Outreach Program The Career Education/Outreach Program offers specialized services to students at risk who demonstrate a pattern of academic failure or poor attendance. The Career Ed/Outreach teacher meets with students and their parents to start the initial work in developing a "Personalized Education Plan" (PEP) which will eventually turn into a contract between the home and school for expected outcomes. The process will include these activities: a. A home/school contract through personal visit and school conference. b Student Study Team (SST) format for problem solving and developing a final Personalized Education Plan (PEP). c. A combination of several instructional options for placement. . A mentor program which matches individual students with professionals in business ď or industry. e. Career planning with a mandatory exploratory work experience or technical training component in the student's PEP. f. Personal accountability with the individual families and the school. The Career Ed/Outreach program may use a combination of any instructional options within the District. This means putting a student in a combination of the regular program, the Support Study Program, ROP, and courses at Pasadena City College. 55 -3- MEMORANDUM NO. Office of Instruction September 10, 1990 Saturday Scholars Program (Saturday School) The "Saturday Scholars Program" will be located at a variety of sites around the District involving the students in grades 4-12. The program will start in the middle of October and will run two semesters: the first, October through January; the second, February through May. There will be at least 12 class meetings for three hours each week during the semester. The following courses or programs will be offered this year: a. A Science and Math Academy will be located on the Jackson Elementary School
R5

Organize a task force, led by the City Administrator, to devise an economic development plan for the city. Members of the task force should include the Deputy City Administrator in charge of development as well as representatives from the City Council, Redevelopment Agency, Community Development Department and PED Corp. The task force should prepare and present to the City Council for its consideration and adoption: Goals for city development, e.g., "add X new jobs in industries A, B and C in the next three years." Once established, these goals may serve as criteria to help prioritize economic and land development initiatives. An action plan and schedule for implementing the strategic goals. The City Council should require periodic progress reports. Given the city's limited personnel in Redevelopment and Community Development, it should be prepared to redeploy assets and personnel if current projects are not meeting high priority needs as identified in the development plan. Direct the Redevelopment Agency to fill its authorized, but vacant, project manager
R6

Saturday Detention Program. The Saturday Detention Program at each middle and senior high school will be separately managed and budgeted at each site. The payments of the teachers for this particular program will not be funded from the HAP budget. Instead, each school will be responsible to manage this program based on ADA recovery. Basically, a student who attends a Saturday Detention program makes up for one full day of unexcused or current absences. The ADA recovery amounts to $20 per day per student. Community Skills Center
R7

Although the Community Skills Center was set up as a partnership between the Pasadena Unified School District, Pasadena City College, and the City of Pasadena, the program is primarily designed for students who are 18 years of age or older who have not completed their high school education. Special arrangements have been made through Pasadena Continuation School and the Alternative Education Work Center to place district students in specified programs that are offered through the Community Skills Center. This year access to the Community Skills Center will be coordinated through the principal of Pasadena Continuation School. It may be possible through an SST process to establish a schedule for a senior high school student to have part of his/her day at the regular high school campus and the other part of the day through the Community Skills Center programs. These need to be coordinated with the principal at the Pasadena Continuation School. For assistance, please contact John Porter, Director, Secondary Instruction at (818) 568-4517. APPROVED: MICHAEL KLENTSCHY, Associate Superintendent, Instruction 57 DISTRIBUTION: Middle/High School Administrators and Counselors EDITORIAL COMMITTEE .5
R8

policies and guidelines for review and approval by the City Council. Policies and guidelines should include, at minimum, the following: A statement of general policy that it is the city's objective to achieve maximum value and economy through a competitive procurement process. Emergency purchases should be minimized. 81
R11

Direct the City Administrator to review and report to the City Council with a plan to improve the city's performance evaluation process. Also, this report should address the adequacy of the city's current job classification system and whether there is a need to update the system. The City Administrator should consider how each of the following components of the performance evaluation system currently works (or does not work) and how they can be improved and integrated: Goals that are mutually agreed upon by superior and subordinate. Performance evaluation criteria and criteria for advancement. Face-to-face counseling sessions and accompanying follow-up. Performance evaluation procedures. Training and career development. 83
R12

Review the performance evaluation process for professionals appointed by the City Council — City Administrator, City Attorney, City Treasurer and City Clerk — and establish appropriate criteria and procedures for evaluation, progress monitoring, counseling, correction and rewards.
R13

Adopt an action plan to implement the preceding recommendations. Such a plan should identify objectives, implementation responsibility, expected outputs and an implementation schedule for each action item.
R14

Direct the City Administrator to monitor progress and report status on a regular basis to the City Council in the following areas: The 1988 Council policy on affirmative action Recommendations made by the 1987-88 Grand Jury report Recommendations made by the Saranow, et.al., report Recommendations made by this report C. FLOW OF TAX INFORMATION (Tracking Property Tax Record Changes)
R75

Development of any kind will be delayed until the city cleans up a hazardous material dump in the middle of the site. The city was unaware of the hazardous material when it began development negotiations. If implementation of two mediation agreements between the city and various community groups regarding Affirmative Action is not accomplished in a timely manner, significant costly litigation against the city could result. The auditors were unable to verify that an individual is monitoring and reporting on progress against the city's affirmative action agreements. The city must strengthen its system of management controls to prevent further problems. The current means by which city management measures, reports and controls performance is inadequate. * Financial reports are not available on a timely basis and do not include key management data, such as trends and comparisons to prior periods. * Monthly department status reports are often a detailed list of tasks accomplished during the month instead of a summary of performance against plans or objectives. * Plans and objectives based on specific, measurable criteria do not exist for most city functions. The City Administrator is currently developing specific plans and objectives for the city departments that report to him. * The Redevelopment Agency lacks a standard procedure to report the progress of projects. * Contracts in the CRA must be more carefully managed: For example, the City Council approved payments for CRA consulting services to a contractor for approximately $244,500 without a written and signed contract. In one agreement for legal services to the CRA, the contract states that hourly rates are subject to revision on an annual basis. In fact, hourly rates for professional services of the firm increased substantially over a five-year period. Yet, the auditors found no evidence that CRA staff knew about the increases in the hourly rates, monitored payments or brought the change in rates or total amount paid to the attention of the City Council. After interviewing a number of law firms, the city appointed a contract law firm to take on the responsibilities of the City Attorney's office and an individual from that firm to be the City Attorney. At the time of hiring, neither the City Attorney nor any member of the firm had any prior experience working as a city attorney. 76