Audit Finds Violations in County Court Renovations

A county audit released late Monday found that Orange County court officials violated local and state laws when they ordered $1.3 million of new carpeting, paint and computer equipment for the courthouse without notifying the public or county officials.

The audit does not recommend disciplinary action or prosecution of court officials, concluding that the error was due largely to mistakes by inexperienced staff.

The audit of renovation work to several floors of the courthouse found that the work was ordered and assigned without notifying competing contractors, county counsel or the Board of Supervisors.

State law requires such notification. County policy mandates that contracts exceeding $25,000 be reviewed by county counsel and those exceeding $75,000 be approved by the Board of Supervisors. Government administrators can be held personally liable for spending that exceeds an approved appropriation.

Assistant Orange County Counsel Tom Agin said his office has not reviewed the audit and has made no decisions on whether to seek prosecution of any court officials.

“Obviously, if there are serious violations in there, that would be something that would be considered,” Agin said.

The audit was a parry by county officials in a bitter legal battle over funding that began in April, when Orange County’s six presiding judges filed an unprecedented civil complaint saying the courts needed an additional $13 million to continue operations through the end of the fiscal year and $10 million more for capital improvements and technological upgrades.

The spending that county internal auditors investigated occurred in late June, the final days of the 1996-97 budget year. It came just one month after county officials, in a move to make departments more accountable for their spending, mandated that courts and other departments order their own materials for the first time.

In July, the Board of Supervisors ordered the audit.

The fight ended in December, when supervisors approved a tentative settlement with Orange County judges agreeing to give the courts an additional $2.95 million in operating funds. Earlier, the Legislature had voted to increase its share of funding for courts.

Court officials blamed the overspending reported Monday on poorly trained money managers at the courthouse who didn’t realize that supervisors’ approval was needed for equipment purchases of more than $25,000.

“There were minor problems with respect to the projects that cost more than $25,000. . . . We had limited training in doing this up to that point,” said Marlene Nelson, Superior Court assistant executive officer.

“This was like a learning process. But it’s all been corrected.”

Supervisor William G. Steiner, who has been highly critical of what he called overspending by court officials, adopted a conciliatory tone Monday.

“We’ve gotten agreement with the courts now, and we’ve put a lot of the hard feelings behind us and decided to get on with life,” Steiner said.

“Obviously, there were technical violations of the procurement procedures, but it probably boils down to the need for better training and to not having the court officials feel so boxed in that they feel they have to resort to creative accounting to get new carpet.”

Esther Schrader can be reached at (714) 564-1050. Her e-mail address is esther.schrader@latimes.com