Welfare Office Given 30 Days to Answer Criticism

The Board of Supervisors has asked the county’s welfare office to respond within 30 days to a scathing grand jury report, which alleged that the operation may lose as much as $500 million annually to internal and external fraud.

Lynn Bayer, director of the county’s Department of Public Social Services, said she agreed with many recommendations in the grand jury’s report, but differed with some of its more sensational assertions and said she needed time to compile a comprehensive reply.

Supervisors agreed Tuesday to give her a month to respond to the report, which recommended that an outside agency oversee the welfare department. Supervisor Mike Antonovich had sought to appoint that outsider Tuesday, but his motion to do so failed to win a second.

“The buck stops here. It doesn’t stop with another report,” Antonovich said after asking Bayer about a number of the report’s assertions.

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke countered that the county needed to assess new programs to combat fraud and do further research before hiring a consultant. She said the board was “taking seriously the recommendations of the grand jury, not dismissing them.”