Board Decides Not to Shift Welfare Fraud Unit to D.A.’s Office : Government: County supervisors set a four-month deadline for the investigators’ current boss to clear up problems.

Rejecting a recommendation by the Ventura County grand jury, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday decided against transferring the county’s demoralized welfare fraud unit to the district attorney’s office.

Instead, the supervisors voted 4 to 1 to give Public Social Service Agency Director James E. Isom--who heads the unit--four months to clean up a barrage of problems stemming from a lack of supervision, poor training and low morale.

The decision came after a heated debate among the supervisors over the fate of the welfare department’s 14-person Fraud Special Investigation Unit.

While Supervisors Susan K. Lacey and Maggie Kildee encouraged the board to give Isom a chance to solve the problems, Supervisors Maria VanderKolk and Vicky Howard said they had lost confidence in Isom’s ability to straighten out the unit.

“We have an opportunity to make a change for the better,” VanderKolk said. “We really need to take a good look at that. I’m not proud of the program right now. I’m embarrassed by it.”

VanderKolk made a motion to turn over the unit to Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury. But her motion failed on a 3-2 vote, with only Howard supporting it.

Kildee then asked the board to leave the program where it is but give Isom a strict schedule to implement improvements. She recommended that Isom report to the board every two weeks to chart his progress. VanderKolk was the only supervisor to vote against Kildee’s suggestion.

Kildee said: “At the end of six months, we can say we have the best welfare fraud division in the state. I believe we can do that.”

Tuesday’s decision came after a grand jury report detailing problems in the unit.

In the report, sent to the Board of Supervisors in April, the grand jury said workers are poorly trained and organized and suffer from low productivity and low self-esteem.

The grand jury found that some investigators were allowed so much freedom that they were dubbed the Breakfast Club because they would regularly meet for long meals during the workday.

Moving the unit to the district attorney’s office would “send a clear message that welfare-fraud restitution and prosecution will be given more serious attention,” the grand jury report said.

A five-member county panel, set up to study the problems in the wake of the grand jury report, found that some of the fraud investigators were skeptical that the situation could improve under current management.

But the panel also found that other workers feared that they would lose their jobs if they were transferred because they might not meet the district attorney’s standards.

Bradbury told the supervisors Tuesday that he would not lay off any workers and pledged to make the program one they “would be very proud of.”

“I will guarantee it will be a model program in 12 months,” Bradbury said.

Isom, however, told the board that he believed that the majority of the unit’s problems stemmed from disgruntled investigators who refused to work because they wanted a transfer to the district attorney’s office--where they would have a chance to receive better benefits.

He told the board that he is confident that he could improve the situation in the unit, if given the chance.

“We’ve got some problems that can be fixed,” Isom said. “Give us an opportunity to fix it first.”

Lacey said she believed that moving the unit would send a bad signal to unhappy employees who want a transfer.

“We would be saying, ‘Act badly and we will reward you,’ ” Lacey said.

But VanderKolk and Howard disagreed.

“If we don’t make a change, we will be rewarding the bad behavior of the management,” VanderKolk said.

Howard said she has lost confidence in the Public Social Service Agency’s ability to remedy the situation.