Countywide : OCTD Staff Doing Well, Grand Jury Report Says

The Orange County Transit District staff is doing a good job but needs to pay closer attention to the new board of directors’ increasing demand for details before key decisions, the county Grand Jury has concluded.

The panel cited findings by Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, a national management consulting firm hired by the grand jury.

“On the whole, the district is a well-managed organization with competent individuals in senior management positions,” the grand jury’s report stated. The jurors added that the staff often presents too few financial details to the board on some projects until just before a vote is needed.

The report also criticized the district’s practice of preparing signed contracts with project bidders before the board has approved the projects, leading to charges that the district may be negotiating in bad faith.

Lorien Systems, a Long Beach computer firm, has such a complaint pending before the U.S. Labor Department after it was first approved and then disapproved for a multimillion-dollar OCTD contract.