L.A. County supervisors order King-Harbor problem employees probe

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors launched an independent investigation today into the failures that allowed problem employees from Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center to continue working in violation of county policies.

Acting Auditor-Controller Wendy L. Watanabe was ordered to complete within four weeks an investigation that will identify those responsible for the flawed oversight of the problem employees – who had county discipline records or criminal convictions – and to recommend reform.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky proposed the investigation after acknowledging that questions from his office and others have so far not resulted in a full accounting by the Department of Health Services.

The auditor-controller “has greater resources to answer the questions I have posed, and the board and public have found their work product to be credible and valuable,” Yaroslavsky said.

Earlier, Supervisor Mike Antonovich called for a closed-door meeting on the King-Harbor employees situation.

The Times reported in recent weeks that the county had not fully tracked employees who worked at the hospital in Willowbrook, just south of Watts, when it closed most services a year ago. As a result, the county has been unable to determine whether the disciplinary process had been completed in many cases, whether employees’ problems have reoccurred and where the problem employees are currently working in the county’s system of hospitals and clinics.

Additionally, as a result of a review prompted by articles in The Times, the county uncovered neglected records that showed that 17 King-Harbor employees had committed serious crimes or had lied about their criminal histories. Disciplinary action against those employees has begun, but the county has so far refused to identify them or their crimes.

Kathy Ochoa, a lobbyist for Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents most King-Harbor employees, argued that the investigation should be completed before the county moves additional employees from King-Harbor, now the site of an outpatient clinic that officials consider overstaffed.

Ochoa said that the investigations would ensure that future transfers do not occur in the same haphazard way as in the past.

Board members said they would see to it that mistakes are not repeated, but they declined to delay the transfers.

 garrett.therolf@latimes.com