Audit Finds Prison’s Late, but Cheaper : State Officials Saved $50 Million, but Otay Mesa Prison Is Far From Done

Poor planning by the state Department of Corrections and private consultants has caused construction of a new prison at Otay Mesa to fall behind schedule, exacerbating the already serious problem of prison overcrowding, according to an audit released Thursday by the state Department of General Services.

The audit, ordered by state Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), also criticized the Department of Corrections for making “unsound” agreements with contractors that may have cost the state thousands of dollars. However, auditors also credited the Corrections Department with satisfying a directive from the state Legislature to cut the cost of each prison cell from $80,000 to $55,000, a total savings of more than $50 million for the 2,200-bed facility. Not surprisingly, corrections officials considered this to be the audit’s most important finding.

“The bottom line of all this is that we saved $50 million, and I don’t think that’s being emphasized enough,” Corrections Department spokesman Robert Gore said from his Sacramento office. “I can see a great public hue and cry if the audit said we wasted $50 million and were still doing it. But we redesigned the project and saved $50 million.”

Among the audit’s more critical findings:

- Construction, originally scheduled to be completed early next year, was delayed 10 months when the prison had to be completely redesigned at a cost of $207,000 after plans that had been approved by top Department of Corrections officials were found to be in violation of the department’s own guidelines.

- The question of how sewer service would be provided to remote Otay Mesa was not considered until after the prison site was chosen and still remains unresolved, pending negotiations between the Department of Corrections and the City of San Diego.

- Potential problems with a still-incomplete environmental impact report, the legality of the state paying the city $2.4 million for a sewer hook-up and the acquisition of a sewer right of way threaten to further delay the currently scheduled January, 1987, completion date.

- Kitchell CEM, a consulting firm on the project, billed the state for $300,000 and was paid, but could not specify the services it had performed to warrant the payment.

- Heery/VCM, the company managing construction, was paid $449,000 for work on the San Diego prison, but $316,000 of that amount was actually spent on other prison projects.

Gore said the audit’s findings and recommendations were “moot” since five of the audit’s eight recommendations had been implemented before the audit was completed, and that currently the department is short of full compliance in only one area. The audit called for the hiring of three project managers; two have been hired, Gore said.

“So, I guess technically you could say we’re out of compliance with one-third of one requirement until we hire the last project manager,” Gore said. “Other than that, the audit’s done. Everything’s been corrected.”

However, Kurt Sjoberg, a deputy in the auditor general’s office in Sacramento, remains incredulous.

“There’s no way for us to be assured that the changes have taken place,” Sjoberg said. “It’s not uncommon for agencies to tell us they don’t need an audit. They certainly don’t ask for us to come in and investigate. Certainly the results in this instance are clear: the planning was inadequate and the resources committed were insufficient.”

Gore explained that the planning errors that delayed the prison project were “innocent mistakes” due to the inexperience of Department of Corrections personnel.

“We hadn’t built a prison in this state since 1965, so there was nobody around who knew how to build a prison,” he said. “We had to just start from scratch and learn as we went along. You’re bound to run into some rough spots.”

Sjoberg, however, said that inexperience was no excuse.

“I don’t really believe that’s valid,” he said. “Agencies are given responsibilities and are expected to fulfill them. Granted, they haven’t had a construction responsibility for many years, but we still expect an agency to plan it out effectively.”

Gore said the “unsound” payments to consultants were unavoidable under the “lump sum” contracting procedure his department inherited from the Administration of Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Under the present Administration, contractors are paid only for specific services rendered, he said.

Sen. Presley, chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Prisons, questioned how errors of inexperience could occur when the state is paying consulting firms $6.1 million for their expertise in prison construction.

“We’re paying them all that money and that’s what they’re supposed to be paid for--to design us out of these problems before we get into them,” Presley said.

When he ordered the audit, Presley asked the Department of General Services to investigate the performance of consulting firms, but Sjoberg said this was not feasible, nor completely relevant.

“It’s very hard for us to go in and ask (the department) ‘Did you get X thousands of dollars’ worth of benefit?’ ” Sjoberg said. “Notwithstanding the fact they hired experts who may not have given them the full benefit of their expertise, the problem lies with Corrections. There are delays and the result of that is continued overcrowding for a year longer than if they handled this matter expeditiously.”

Without the Otay Mesa prison, overcrowding at other state penitentiaries, which are already filled to 155% of optimum capacity, will be 9% higher than if the facility had been completed on time, Sjoberg said.

Clarence Vaughn, president of Kitchell CEM, said much of the criticism leveled at his firm and the Department of Corrections was unjustified.

“From an auditor’s point of view, it’s basically fair,” he said. “But I think that running through the audit is an unfamiliarity with prison design. To rework a $150-million prison takes more than a week. It’s a very complicated process.”

As for the audit’s warnings of future delays caused by problems in obtaining a sewer hook-up, Gore said these were largely phantom fears.

“They’re right about that being a potential problem, but I don’t think it’s very likely,” he said. “We’re proceeding, we’re moving forward and we’ll deal with any problems as they emerge.”

Even when it is completed, the new prison will still face a problem: overcrowding. Presley said the prison would be filled beyond capacity “for at least the first couple years” until the other nine facilities being built in the state’s $1.2-billon prison expansion program are completed.