County Housing Agency Gets Grand Jury Criticism : Government: Panel’s report cites problems ranging from inefficiency to rude employees. But it lauds staff’s ‘commitment.’

The Orange County Grand Jury on Thursday criticized the county Housing and Redevelopment Department for a range of inadequacies, including an inefficient system of paying contractors and sloppily dressed and rude employees.

Jurors also dinged the department for a painfully slow internal mail service that recently took seven days to route correspondence several blocks, from grand jury members to the office of Housing Assistance Services.

The report characterized the problems as “disruptive weaknesses” within the department that could probably be cured by a reorganization of office management and simple displays of leadership by top administrators.

Housing and Redevelopment Director Dhongchai (Bob) Pusavat was unavailable for comment Thursday, but County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider said the findings were already being addressed by county officials.

“The reports of employees being sloppy and rude to the public were disturbing,” Schneider said. “It is my understanding that some of the problems have already been solved.”

Local residents generally come in contact with the Housing and Redevelopment Department while applying for low-income housing assistance.

The department is an agency of the county Environmental Management Agency and receives no county funds but is supported by federal and states grants that total about $60 million annually.

The department provides a number of housing services and distributes millions of dollars from the federal Community Development Block Grant program.

The grand jury report found that in some offices, “persons are attired in dirty or sloppy clothing. Some wear torn clothing. . . . Personnel working within the offices appear apathetic toward visitors.

“Accounting procedures were confusing; mail delivery was slow; telephone services were poor; wearing apparel and personnel attitudes were not professional,” the five-page report stated.

At the same time, however, jurors commended the department staff of about 100 workers for their “commitment to assigned tasks.”

One of the most critical problems, according to the grand jury report, were the lengthy delays in providing payment to contractors for work done on housing and redevelopment projects. Frequently, payments have been held up by six weeks or more.

Jurors said some of the delays have been caused by “too many oversight approval” requirements before the payments can be made by the county auditor-controller.

“Those delays can be devastating to small contractors,” the report stated. “How long a payment authorization sits in the auditor-controller’s office cannot be determined.”

As a result, the jury has called for the creation of new accounting procedures that allow for prompt payment to contractors.

Environmental Management Agency Director Michael M. Ruane said the report has the potential to “create a negative impression” of the department since many of the problems were already being addressed.

Regarding the jury’s finding that too much oversight in the accounting system had delayed payment, Ruane said that past audits had been critical of the department for having “too few” controls over how money was managed within the department.

Ruane also said the mail service problem has already been resolved.