Fraud Unit Beset With Problems, Report Says : Government: Supervisors are asked to decide the fate of welfare investigators, who could be transferred to D.A.’s office.

Supporting earlier findings by the Ventura County grand jury, a panel has concluded that the county’s welfare fraud unit is riddled with serious problems stemming from a lack of supervision, poor training and low morale.

But the investigative panel, made up of five county employees, stopped short of endorsing the 1991-92 grand jury’s recommendation to transfer the welfare department’s 14-person Fraud Special Investigative Unit to the district attorney’s office--a move that would end a power struggle between the county’s top prosecutor and the director of the Public Social Services Agency.

Instead, according to the 11-page report made public Thursday, panel members suggest that members of the Board of Supervisors decide the fate of the welfare fraud unit.

They suggest that the board either leave the unit under the jurisdiction of the Public Social Services Agency, move it to the district attorney’s office or split the unit between the two departments. In all cases, the panel found, the board should implement various changes in the unit’s operating procedure. The supervisors are expected to address the issue at their Tuesday meeting.

“We tried to just lay it out in a way the board can look at it and decide which way to go,” said Ruth P. Schepler, a county analyst who led the panel, which also included two county budget analysts and aides to Supervisors Maria VanderKolk and Vicky Howard.

“We really felt that this was in the purview of the Board of Supervisors,” Schepler said.

According to the report, the panel conducted extensive interviews with members of the unit, who said they were poorly equipped and trained and their office lacked discipline.

Some welfare investigators were allowed so much freedom that they were dubbed the Breakfast Club because they would regularly meet for long meals during the workday.

“There is a definite consensus that major changes need to be made in the supervision/management of the unit,” Schepler wrote. “Most (workers) express dismay that when they were hired, their initial training consisted of giving them a stack of files and telling them these were their cases (and) to start working on them without providing background on welfare laws.”

In addition, some of the fraud investigators said they felt that they had been treated “as if they weren’t worth anything,” according to the report.

“I know right now (the unit) is quite demoralized and I imagine that it is very difficult to function,” Schepler said.

The committee conclusions support those reached by last year’s grand jury. In April, the grand jury found that the fraud investigators referred an average of just 1.7 criminal cases a month to prosecutors during a 27-month period ending in January. That is “very low” considering that the county has about 15,000 food stamp and dependent children cases, according to the grand jury report.

The jurors found that moving the unit to the district attorney’s office would “send a clear message to violators that welfare-fraud restitution and prosecution will be given more serious attention.”

Top county officials agreed in August to form the five-member panel--led by Schepler, who is from the chief administrative office--to study the matter and report back to the board.

According to the panel’s report, some of the fraud investigators expressed skepticism about whether the situation could change under current management. But several other fraud investigators said they were afraid that they would lose their jobs if they were transferred because they might not fit the “district attorney’s mold,” according to the report.

Several county officials also expressed fear that moving the unit to the district attorney’s office would cost the county thousands of dollars, since the investigators would then be included in the lucrative public safety retirement plan. But Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he believes that he could make the fraud unit pay for itself by implementing a stiff restitution program.

Social service agency Director James E. Isom said he is asking the board to give him 18 months to clean up the unit’s problems.

“I don’t think there is anything that can’t be corrected here,” Isom said. “We have already made some changes, and in my mind some significant things will get better. The unit will continue to improve.”

He wrote in a memo to the board Thursday: “If problems exist in the organization, the manager should first be given the opportunity to resolve them.”

But in a separate report to supervisors Thursday, Bradbury urged the board to turn the unit over to his department.

“There is nothing that I’m aware of that will lead one to believe things will improve if it remains where it is,” Bradbury said. “It causes me concern for the county of Ventura.”

In addition, he said his office has a history of taking on projects and making them extraordinary successes.

“We will do the same with (the unit),” he said.

So far, VanderKolk has expressed strong support for transferring the unit to the district attorney’s office.

“Clearly, the system has not been working as well as it could be,” she said. “In a lot of ways, the Public Social Services Agency has been willing to make changes.

“But I really feel the district attorney’s office may be able to do a much better job with this. I think they should be given that chance.”

Doug Johnson, a VanderKolk aide who served on the panel to investigate the problems, added: “For Jim Isom to come in and say, ‘Give me 18 months,’ well, he has had years. Let’s give it to the district attorney. It is clearly not working where it is and it needs to be fixed.”

But Supervisor John K. Flynn said he is leaning toward giving Isom the chance to fix the problems.

“I think he can straighten it out,” Flynn said. “I’m satisfied where it is.”