Sheriff Block Calls for Audit of His Agency

Sheriff Sherman Block on Tuesday asked for a full county audit of his department--the first in memory--to answer reports that executive perks, high-priced jail food and other suspect spending may be costing taxpayers unnecessarily.

Block criticized a series in The Times published earlier this month on the department’s spending practices and the lack of oversight by the Board of Supervisors of his department’s budget.

The sheriff acknowledged that there were some potentially useful points raised in the articles--including the high cost of running an inmate bakery and of bypassing low bidders on food contracts. He said the department is considering changes in some of these areas.

“There is always room for improvement,” the sheriff said.

Block, who refused to be interviewed for the series, did take issue with what he termed too negative a view of the department’s financial operations.

A full fiscal audit through the Chief Administrative Office--the first of its kind that he could remember--should help resolve many of these issues, Block said, adding: “It will show that we do a very good job of managing this department.”

Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said he will meet soon with county Auditor-Controller Alan Sasaki on how to best pursue the study, including whether an independent auditor should be hired.

“I think the request to do an audit either by county personnel or external [auditors] is a good resolution to the issues raised both by the Los Angeles Times and individual board members,” Janssen said.

Several members of the Board of Supervisors, who in the past have failed to aggressively oversee Sheriff Department spending, praised Block for requesting the audit and acknowledged that they need more information on how his $1.1-billion budget is spent.

“There is nobody in county government today who can recall the last time the Sheriff’s Department was audited,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “I hope it will be a thorough audit, an independent audit. That’s the key.”

Said Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke: “We don’t have oversight over any department of this county, because we don’t get a line-by-line program budget. . . . We want to know the details.”

The Times series detailed a number of of unusual expenditures at the Sheriff’s Department, from four-slice toasters at a cost of $466 each to allegations of favoritism in the awarding of lucrative contracts.

How the department spends tax dollars has become a critical issue. In recent years, a cash crunch has prompted Block to close jails, forcing the early release of thousands of inmates from other facilities because of overcrowding.

On Tuesday, however, Block speculated that The Times’ series was motivated by politics. Calling the two-part report a “hit piece,” he speculated that The Times wants a new sheriff elected in 1998 because he does not always agree with The Times’ editorial positions. “Maybe I’m not in their hip pocket,” he said.

In response, the newspaper’s director of communications, Laura Morgan, said: “The Times has a responsibility, which it takes seriously, to report on the operations of government agencies, including the Sheriff’s Department. We stand by the accuracy of our reports.

Some of Block’s criticisms on Tuesday did not square with statements made by his top staff during extensive earlier interviews.

For example, Block said an industry magazine showed that his department’s food costs are lower than those of other jails. In earlier interviews Fred M. Ramirez, Block’s chief fiscal officer, said repeatedly that he wants to reduce food costs in the jail because they appear higher than in many other systems.

Block also was sharply critical of The Times’ descriptions of the department’s jail food purchasing system, which records and interviews show has led to higher contract prices for some items, including coffee and chicken, that one vendor said was too costly for inmates.

“We do not serve premium coffee and we do not serve gourmet chicken,” Block said. “We serve coffee and we serve chicken.”

The sheriff acknowledged that the department purchases chicken costing more per pound because it is individually quick frozen with each piece weighing roughly the same. But he said that “in the long run” it costs less than the cheaper varieties because there is less waste. Some food experts continue to say it is in fact more expensive.

The sheriff also said that despite a contract agreement to purchase salmon for the inmates at a price well above the low bidder, the fish was never purchased because “the cost was very high.”

As for the inmate coffee, Block insisted it was not a “premium” blend, even though that description was used by the county in purchasing documents and in a solicitation to contract bidders.

Block blamed that description on purchasing agents at the Internal Services Department, which helped secure the order. But purchasing manager Chrys Varnes said her department was only following instructions from the Sheriff’s Department.

“Let’s be logical about this--why would we want premium coffee for the jails?” she asked. “When did I become the dietitian [for the jails]? . . . That’s not our job to make up the specifications.”

Block said the coffee--delivered in pre-measured filter packs--helps eliminates waste and delivers a higher yield than coffee previously purchased for the department.

In fact, the department spent far less last year on coffee than the $861,000 that was budgeted and approved--highlighting communication lapses between the Sheriff’s Department and the county’s main purchasing arm, Internal Services.

Ultimately, MET Corp. of La Jolla was paid less than $300,000 during the 11-month contract. In interviews, managing director Brian Merkin attributed the savings to lower market prices and the higher yield his coffee produces per pound-- even though higher yield was calculated in the contract costs.

Sheriff’s officials did not respond to questions Tuesday about why the coffee payouts were so much lower than budgeted or how the balance of the money was used.

Two coffee companies offered bids that were about a third lower than MET’s price, but both bids were rejected--in part because they could not meet the Sheriff’s demands for delivery every weekday. Although sheriff’s officials have said they received daily delivery for “probably a month” before realizing it was unneeded, Merkin said he never delivered daily.

Merkin said the purchase was “a very good business deal for the county” since the sheriff ultimately spent so much less than was planned.

Merkin said he was worried that the controversy is jeopardizing his chances of getting a new coffee contract--or that jail officials might do away with coffee altogether, as have other facilities. “This whole thing has come up at the wrong time. I’m a small company, and I’m just hoping to get as much business as I can, fairly,” he said.

The substantial difference between the amount budgeted and the amount paid has attracted the attention of county auditors, who said such overestimations allow sheriff’s officials to use the money for other purposes.

“That could be a concern . . . especially if they knew they didn’t need all that money,” said J. Tyler McCauley, the county’s assistant auditor-controller. “It means the sheriff is spending money that maybe the board wanted to spend on another department that is hurting.”

Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.