A New Breed of Watchdog

Suddenly, inspectors general are a hotter accessory than cargo pants.

The newly elected sheriff is searching for one to monitor his jails. The Board of Supervisors last month created an inspector general to advise it on how to avoid future lawsuits. Supervisor Mike Antonovich wants another to investigate the district attorney’s problem-plagued child support office. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority already has one, and so does the Los Angeles Police Department, though City Hall has been preoccupied for months by a debate over that one’s proper role.

And although the Los Angeles Unified School District backed off appointing an inspector general last month--opting for its internal watchdog to be an auditor--state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) this week demanded that the district create a full-fledged inspector general in the wake of problems with the construction of a school complex near downtown Los Angeles.

Some say the proliferation of inspectors general--whose charge to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse makes them beloved of good-government types--reflects the difficulties elected leaders have keeping pace with the growth of bureaucracies.

“There’s no doubt there’s more and more government every day,” said Gloria Molina, one of five county supervisors responsible for 35 departments, which make up a government larger than those of 42 states. “We as elected officials really need to have a partner who can help us scrutinize these issues.”

Naming that partner “inspector general” sends a signal, said David Tokofsky, the school board member who proposed such a position.

“Calling something a general in a bureaucracy elevates it to a level of respect,” he said. Citing the title that ultimately won out in the school district, he added: “It certainly beats ‘the director of internal audit,’ which is about 12 notches down the feeding chain.”

Only as Strong as Laws That Create Them

But despite their catchy titles, inspectors general are only as strong as the laws creating them. And two of Los Angeles County’s inspectors general occupy more administrative than investigative posts, while questions have been raised about the independence of other inspectors general.

To some observers, that suggests a second reason why inspector general is the bureaucratic post du jour.

“Institutions are in trouble,” said Ramona Ripston, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “I think there’s a feeling that an inspector general might give the public the perception that things are either OK or being changed to make them better.”

The agency pushing the most visible new inspector general post--the Sheriff’s Department--is candid in hoping that the position burnishes its image.

“We just want to make sure that we have somebody in there who has credibility with the Board [of Supervisors] and with the public, and gives an element that we’re not hiding anything or deceiving anyone,” Assistant Sheriff Larry Waldie said of the jails post. The goal is to increase “trust in us--and also that we have somebody from the outside taking a look.”

Some skeptics believe that the position could improve the department’s image in another manner. The proposed inspector general would be selected by the sheriff and cover some issues already probed by Merrick Bobb, an attorney who monitors the department for the Board of Supervisors and has issued several critical reports.

“He shouldn’t be reporting in a subservient role to people [sheriff’s officials] that he is investigating,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said of the position, whose parameters can still be modified, sheriff’s officials said.

Those who are suspicious of the latest bout of inspector general proposals point out that Los Angeles lags behind other metropolitan areas when it comes to the internal watchdogs.

For example, while Los Angeles Unified has declined to have an inspector general, the New York City schools have two. Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services has an inspector general with no staff, and he essentially performs administrative functions. Illinois’ child welfare agency, with half the caseload of Los Angeles’, is scrutinized by more than two dozen investigators in its inspector general’s office, which has subpoena power and examines all aspects of the agency.

The first modern inspector general position was created in 1976 to monitor the giant U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services). Since then, inspectors general have sprouted in many other federal agencies. State and local agencies have followed suit.

Positions at the local level have multiplied dramatically in the 1990s, according to Robert A. Cerasoli, president of the Assn. of Inspectors General.

“Every time we have a conference,” said Cerasoli, Massachusetts’ inspector general, “there’s three or four new inspector generals.”

He attributes the increase to “privatization,” which leads to more government contracting with businesses and can raise the potential for fraud and corruption. “The key factor for an inspector general is their independence,” he said. “Is the individual appointed for a set term, and can [that person] only be removed for wrongdoing?”

The terms of their service is one of many areas in which Los Angeles’ inspectors general have less institutional support than those in other jurisdictions.

Only the MTA’s inspector general serves a set term, and legislation establishing that passed just last year. The current holder of the position, Arthur Sinai, has yet to be appointed to that term.

The county children’s services inspector general, Victor Greenberg, said he pushed to ensure that his post would have Civil Service protection. “I’m trying to create something where there’s as little political interference as possible,” he said.

Some Have Staff, but Others Don’t

All other Los Angeles inspectors general essentially serve at someone else’s discretion. (The current Sheriff’s Department proposal calls for the sheriff to have power to remove the inspector general of jails with the concurrence of the Board of Supervisors. But Assistant Sheriff Waldie said such removal would only be under extreme circumstances.)

Another key issue is whether inspectors general have adequate staff to fully investigate the enormous agencies they monitor. Locally, only Sinai and the LAPD inspector general have staff, though sheriff’s officials say the inspector general for jails will probably have a staff.

“You’ve got to put your money where your mouth is,” Sinai said, adding quickly, “and the MTA has.”

Institutional support is crucial, experts say, because inspectors general become targets of retribution by elected officials. Sinai, for example, has been publicly berated by MTA board members whom he has either investigated or who are connected to projects he has examined.

The first inspector general of the LAPD, Katherine Mader, quit her post last fall as her civilian bosses on the Police Commission prepared to fire her. Though the commission’s staff said Mader’s work was substandard, she said her position was being undermined by a commission more interested in protecting the LAPD than investigating it.

The LAPD post would be strengthened in the new City Charter, but Mader says the document still falls short because it does not guarantee confidentiality to officers who cooperate with the inspector’s investigations and does not stipulate a term of service. “Without statutory protections,” she said, “any inspector general is at the mercy of the political and institutional winds.”

But Mark Epstein, an attorney for the Christopher Commission, which proposed the LAPD inspector general’s post, said the commission never wanted the watchdog to serve guaranteed terms, which would--in his view--reduce the inspector general’s accountability.

What if, asked Epstein, the inspector general did a poor job and there was no way to remove him or her? Imagine, he said--stressing that this hypothetical situation is based on his perspective--”an inspector general who won’t do the audits the Police Commission wants or isn’t doing them very well, and the Police Commission just says, ‘We’re stuck with this person for five years.’ ”

Still, Mader and others contend that tough statutory protection is the only way to ensure independence for inspectors general, especially given Los Angeles’ politics.

“There’s a lot of resistance from entrenched interests in this city to having strong oversight,” she said.

Tokofsky said he saw that when his school board colleagues balked at naming their new internal watchdog an inspector general and giving that post subpoena power. “There’s an unwillingness to lift up the rock and look underneath,” he said.

Questions have even been raised about the independence of Sinai, who wins praise from many for his probes of the MTA, some of which have aided federal prosecutions.

Former MTA employee Amelia Earnest alleged in a lawsuit that Sinai failed to protect her when she was helping him investigate allegations of wrongdoing by city councilman and MTA board member Richard Alatorre. Earnest said she was investigated and harassed and ultimately fired by MTA brass for aiding an inquiry that is credited with spurring a federal investigation of the councilman’s finances.

“He comes in after the war is over and bayonets the dead,” Earnest said of Sinai, alleging that he is hesitant to tackle politically sensitive cases.

Two Watchdogs Have Narrower Missions

Not all of Los Angeles’ inspector generals wade into investigative wars. Two have the title but not the traditional inspecting responsibilities.

Children’s Services Inspector General Greenberg has a limited role in watching the department. For example, when allegations surfaced that the agency’s head, Peter Digre, interceded to stop his social workers from investigating a political ally, the matter was probed by the county auditor-controller’s office rather than Greenberg.

Greenberg’s post was created after publicity over the death of a child going through the county’s dependency court process three years ago, and his primary role is to report on child deaths to county supervisors.

He draws praise from children’s advocates and his bosses on the Board of Supervisors alike, but in an interview he acknowledged that his role is not that of a traditional inspector general.

“I use these cases as a fish-eye lens into the system,” he said. “I’m more of a systems analyst.”

It is hard to gauge Greenberg’s impact, because his reports are made privately to board members and kept confidential under state juvenile-court laws. Supervisors say his recommendations have helped them change both policy and state law--in one instance sparking legislation to require parenting classes for teenage parents.

Supervisor Don Knabe said he had Greenberg’s role in mind when he proposed the county’s newest inspector general post for risk management.

The official in this still-unfilled new position would report to supervisors on whether county departments are correcting systemic problems that sparked lawsuits. That role is a long way, Knabe acknowledged, from the classic inspector general mandate of exposing waste, fraud and abuse.

“It’s a different kind of job, same kind of title,” Knabe said. He chose the inspector general title “for lack of a better name. Inspector generals always have a sense of independent oversight. I think the title’s appropriate.”

Greenberg’s role has also been cited as the inspiration for Antonovich’s push to create an inspector general as early as next week to investigate the district attorney’s troubled child support unit.

The child support issue has baffled the county board, which has approved so many motions to tinker with the operation that county staff is making a chart to track them.

“When the district attorney fixes a problem,” Antonovich said, “we end up with more of the same. What we need is the intervention of an independent inspector general.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Inspectors General: the Few, the New

Inspector general (pl. inspectors general)--an official, as of a government department, whose responsibility is to investigate and report on that department.

--Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third Edition

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The first inspector general in Los Angeles was appointed in 1993 to monitor the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Since then, the concept has gained popularity. There are now four inspectors general--although one post is vacant--and proposals exist for two more. Experts say that inspectors general vary in independence and effectiveness, with key factors being whether their jobs are protected and whether they have the resources to truly investigate complex bureaucracies.

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MTA INSPECTOR GENERAL: Arthur Sinai

Responsibility: Investigate waste, fraud and abuse at MTA, report to MTA board and public.

Staff: 36 with office budget of $3 million.

Pay: $127,000

Experience: Former assistant inspector general, federal Department of Education; assistant deputy treasury secretary, New York City deputy commissioner for corrections and head of private investigative firm.

Time in current job: 5 1/2 years

* Serves at the will of MTA board; under 1998 state law, this position will be a four-year term. Post created after years of scandals involving subway construction at MTA.

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CHILDREN’S SERVICES INSPECTOR GENERAL: Victor Greenberg

Responsibility: Investigate child deaths and report findings confidentially to Board of Supervisors.

Staff: None

Pay: $82,000

Experience: Former attorney in county counsel’s children’s services unit.

Time in current job: 2 1/2 years

* Selected by Board of Supervisors and can only be removed for cause under Civil Service protection. Post created after scandal involving death of 2-year-old boy under county protection.

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LAPD INSPECTOR GENERAL (INTERIM): Dierdre Hill

Responsibility: Report to Police Commission on LAPD discipline system and any other police matters.

Staff: 12

Pay: $102,000

Experience: Attorney and former President of Police Commission.

Time in current job: Two months

* Serves at will of Police Commission, which is appointed by mayor. Hill is serving as interim inspector general after the resignation of the first inspector general, Katherine Mader.

Post created as part of department reforms after Rodney King beating.

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INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR RISK MANAGEMENT: Position Not Yet Filled

Responsibility: Investigate whether county departments are repairing systemic problems that have sparked lawsuits and report to Board of Supervisors.

Staff: None

Pay: Not yet established

* To serve at will of Board of Supervisors. Post created in January after years of mammoth payments by county on lawsuits, including $23 million last year for Sheriff’s Department brutality case.

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NEW POSITIONS PROPOSED

INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR JAILS

Responsibility: To investigate conditions and treatment of inmates in county’s jail system.

* Post has been recommended by newly elected Sheriff Lee Baca after his predecessor, Sheriff Sherman Block, was dogged by scandals over the release of inmates and brutality and maltreatment in jails.

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CHILD SUPPORT INSPECTOR GENERAL

Responsibility: To investigate the district attorney’s problem-plagued child support unit and report to the Board of Supervisors.

* The post was proposed this week by Supervisor Mike Antonovich after the board had struggled to reform the child support unit in response to a Los Angeles Times investigation last year revealing that the office fails to collect money in nine of 10 cases.

A HISTORICAL LOOK

* The first American inspectors general: George Washington created the first American inspector general in 1777 when he called for the post in the Revolutionary Army. European armies had long relied on an inspector general to monitor morale and conduct of troops, as well as their financing. Citing reports of poor conduct in the army, the Continental Congress approved Washington’s proposal.

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* The first inspector general of the army: Baron von Steuben, a former aide to Frederick the Great. Among other army inspectors general was Alexander Hamilton.

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* Other (nonmilitary) inspectors general: Although the title is the same, the inspectors general that exist in federal and local governments were born 200 years later, after a congressional review found a weak and understaffed auditing operation in the mammoth federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The motion creating a presidentially appointed inspector general for that agency passed with bipartisan support.

Creation of that post was followed in 1978 by a dozen more inspectors general, all protected by federal statute in the Inspector General Act.

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* Current posts: Over the years such positions have evolved and multiplied in Washington, where there are presidentially appointed inspectors general in 27 federal agencies. These differ from the military posts, which still exist at the division level to take troop complaints and monitor discipline and perform investigations.

In the early 1980s, local governments slowly began to create their own inspectors general. There are more than 130 members of the National Assn. of Inspectors General.