Child Welfare Party Bill Questioned

Los Angeles County’s troubled child welfare agency improperly paid more than $7,000 to a foster mother who was a political ally of the department’s outgoing director, according to a confidential county audit obtained by The Times.

The expenditures were part of more than $16,000 paid to Sandra Rodriguez of La Puente to reimburse her for two quinceaneras held by her foster parents’ agency, Futuro Hispano Para los Ninos. From examining Rodriguez’s receipts and interviewing those involved, auditors determined that though about $9,000 of the funds was spent appropriately, $7,307.48 was not.

Rodriguez, who was accused of abusing foster children in her care, has been a central figure in the controversies surrounding the county’s troubled Department of Children and Family Services.

According to the audit, the first check she received for the social events was for $4,999.95, just 5 cents below the threshold that would have initiated an automatic review of the expenses. That payment, the auditors found, apparently was authorized by Peter Digre, the department’s controversial director.

The second payment totaled more than $11,000 for a quinceanera the following year that featured a no-host bar and was attended by department employees, including Digre.

Digre said the quinceaneras, elaborate 15th-birthday parties that traditionally celebrate a girl’s entry into womanhood, were “among the best events I have ever seen that have a very positive and enriching impact on our foster children.”

In an interview Monday, Digre said that, in his view, many of the auditors’ critical findings stemmed from differing interpretations of how state funds can be used.

“I really resent it being turned into something wrong, because a lot of people worked very, very hard to create a really beautiful thing,” Digre said.

The probe was commissioned after allegations earlier this year that Digre had protected Rodriguez from his own investigators, who alleged that she had abused three foster children in her care. The abuse charges were later dropped in a deal that allowed Rodriguez to regain custody of her biological children, who had been removed from her custody, along with the foster children, when the allegations were made.

Digre strongly denied any wrongdoing in that case. He abruptly resigned from his post in April, the same day the county counsel said an investigation showed he had not shown improper favoritism toward Rodriguez.

Rodriguez did not return a call for comment.

The turmoil in the department has intensified after the deaths of three foster children in the last four months, including two at a foster care agency Digre helped to found. Murder charges have been filed against foster parents in two of those cases.

After formally recognizing Digre for his eight years of service, county supervisors are scheduled to go behind closed doors today to discuss the confidential audit’s findings.

Digre said that the county’s support of the quinceaneras is not unusual and that his department pays for “hundreds” of foster parents to attend conferences and events. He said that his agency has long publicized the quinceaneras and its involvement in them.

Rodriguez held her first quinceanera in August 1997 as a private event, yet was reimbursed two months later by the department. “This is a highly unusual occurrence for any county program,” the audit states.

When asked by auditors why the department would pay for the event, deputy director Amaryllis Watkins told auditors “that the department believed the event was a great success and ‘that everybody had a good time,’ ” the audit reports.

Watkins told auditors that Digre would have had to have authorized the payment. When the auditors asked Digre whether he did, Digre “did not answer directly,” according to the report, but said he attended the event as “godfather” to many of the children and would have authorized it.

Receipts that Rodriguez submitted to Children and Family Services showed she had bought or rented formal clothes for 30 foster children and served 100 meals, yet department records indicate that only 20 foster children attended the 1997 event.

The next year’s quinceanera was a different affair. It was sponsored by the department and came as a scathing audit soured Digre’s relations with the majority of his bosses on the Board of Supervisors. Rodriguez eventually spoke before the board, praising Digre’s performance.

The department’s sponsorship of Rodriguez’s quinceanera, according to the audit, angered several foster parents, who alleged that they were excluded because of differences with Rodriguez.

County attorneys advised the department that it could sponsor the event only if it were open to all foster children. Digre later wrote to the county’s chief administrative office that all foster children had been invited, but the audit found that that was not the case. On Monday, Digre maintained that the event had been open to all foster parents.

The audit states that although Children and Family Services was listed as the event’s sponsor, Rodriguez was apparently the sole organizer, making all the arrangements, handling bookkeeping and holding dance lessons at her home.

Foster parents received a county check for each foster child attending the event. Most, the audit said, picked the checks up at Rodriguez’s house. Then she led them to a local restaurant, where the parents cashed their checks and turned the money over to Rodriguez, according to the report.

Auditors say the restaurant charged a 6% to 10% fee for cashing the county checks.

Auditors also wrote that Rodriguez added a $25 shoe charge to receipts for the 50 foster children attending the event, though the manager of the store where the shoes were reportedly purchased said he never sold or rented shoes to Rodriguez. The children apparently were ultimately provided with shoes.

Additionally, state funds were used to pay for both quinceaneras, although certain children attending were not eligible to receive subsidies from such funds, nor were department workers. Saying the department “circumvented” state requirements and improperly used the money to feed its own workers, the audit recommends that the county repay the state for $7,307.48 that the auditors deem was improperly spent.

Digre said he believed department workers and the children’s families had to be included for the events to have meaning and said that state regulations permit payment for “activities which will stimulate the child’s physical and/or emotional growth.”

Although the audit is new, at least one of the problems it turned up has long been known to the department. Just before the second quinceanera, in August 1998, the department realized the $575 it had paid Rodriguez for rosaries was inappropriate and should be refunded, according to the audit. Rodriguez signed a statement agreeing to return the money.

“To date,” the audit states, “Ms. Rodriguez has not returned the money, nor has the department pursued the overpayment.”

Digre on Monday called the lack of payment “an oversight.”

“That must be repaid,” he said.