Supervisors Give Sheriff 9 Months to Fix Problems

Abandoning their hands-off attitude toward spending practices at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, county supervisors on Tuesday ordered tough new safeguards to rein in fiscal abuses at the department in the wake of a searing county audit.

The sweeping move gives sheriff’s officials nine months to clean up widespread problems in the way they dole out overtime, award contracts and inform other county officials--including the Board of Supervisors--about what the department is doing with its $1.1-billion annual budget.

The unanimous vote also represents a strong rebuff to the long-held autonomy of the Sheriff’s Department, which for years has been given virtual free rein to decide how it spends its money with little intervention by county elected officials, administrators or auditors.

The board ordered the department to work with other county officials to create a new overtime system for its employees and tighten controls over other problem areas, including overpayments in workers’ compensation claims and the failure of many employees to punch time cards documenting the hours they work. The Sheriff’s Department was also ordered to redesign its contracting and purchasing system because of expensive foul-ups.

After months of tensions over the sheriff’s budget, the final vote was approved without a word of discussion by the board. Sheriff’s officials were not even present for the vote. Undersheriff Jerry Harper said in an interview afterward that the department welcomed the reforms ordered by the board. “This is a plus. The more the board knows about our budget and understands it, the better off we all are. We all would have been better off if we’d have had this [type of scrutiny] before now,” he said.

The undersheriff also disclosed that the department is reviewing the county audit released last week to determine whether disciplinary action should be taken against any agency employees. “All I can say is that we’ve begun that review,” he said.

The audit, prepared by the county auditor-controller’s office, was the last--and most critical--of three reviews ordered by the county in response to a Times series published last November. The stories disclosed that sheriff’s officials had spent millions of dollars on high-priced jail food, executive perks and other suspect transactions, even as they complained that budget woes forced them to eliminate thousands of jail beds and grant early releases to tens of thousands of convicted inmates.

Last week’s audit detailed a slew of embarrassing expenditures that spanned the Sheriff’s Department’s massive operation, revealing a breakdown in fiscal controls in some key operations.

Overtime appeared particularly vulnerable to abuse, as the department exceeded its overtime budget by $30 million, the audit revealed. Eight jail sergeants--including one responsible for assigning shifts--collected more than $50,000 each in overtime for the year. And some clerical workers in the Carson station racked up five times as much overtime as employees at similar-sized sheriff’s stations.

Meanwhile, “night bonuses” were awarded to some staff members who had actually been working days, and more than half the recipients in one sample of workers’ compensation injury cases were paid too much money because administrators apparently did not understand or follow regulations.

The sheriff’s purchasing and contracts operation also was plagued by problems, according to the audit.

Employees would routinely “split” the purchases of computers and other items into several different acquisitions, making them appear smaller, the audit found. That practice--in violation of policy--allowed the department to bypass normal oversight by officials outside the agency who are supposed to review all contracts worth more than $5,000.

In the department’s aircraft operation, warehouse workers were allowed to buy parts and service without having to seek approval from sheriff’s supervisors under a $1-million no-bid contract, and orders were sometimes made without even seeking quotes or estimates from the sole vendor.

Auditors also found that one $8-million contract has been renewed each year since 1973 with the same vendor without ever being put out for competitive bidding.

When work is put out to bid, the process has proved rife with confusion, miscalculation and omissions, the audit found. On at least one maintenance job, the Board of Supervisors might well have picked a different contractor had it been accurately told by the department that the company it was recommending would charge $3 million more over the life of the contract, the audit found.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who joined board Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky in sponsoring Tuesday’s motion, said the audit findings allowed the board to move ahead with its newly aggressive posture. “It took a crisis to do this,” he said.

Yaroslavsky noted that just a little more than a year ago, he could not get anyone on the board to second a far less imposing motion that would have divided the sheriff’s budget into several different units, allowing closer inspection.

“I don’t think there’s any question that historically, this board has deferred to the sheriff . . . but it’s sure a different atmosphere around here,” Yaroslavsky said in an interview. “Because of a lack of scrutiny, a lack of oversight on the part of county government, things have gotten lax [at the Sheriff’s Department], and you end up with a mess on your hands.”

Yaroslavsky added that Sheriff Sherman Block has shown his commitment to reform, bringing in a new administrator to oversee fiscal management and agreeing to changes recommended by auditors, among other steps.

“I think the board has discovered--and the sheriff has discovered too--that there’s a need to make some serious changes,” Yaroslavsky said. “This has been a real eye-opener for everyone.”