CASSIE MACDUFF
You've got to hand it to the recently adjourned 2008-09 San Bernardino County grand jury.
It identified the county's chronic ethical problems as warranting an entire, separate section in the grand jury report, which is usually organized by dry divisions: administrative, audit/fiscal, human services, law and justice and the like.
The new section is called "governmental reform." Its recommendations include campaign contribution limits for county supervisors, monthly rather than yearly filing of gift reports by top county officials, and an ethics commission to act as watchdog.
It's up to future grand juries whether they continue the practice of recommending governmental reforms, but 2008-09 grand jury foreman Burrel Woodring told me he hopes they do.
It might help save millions of dollars spent on lawyers, as the county has done in recent years.
Here's my take on the grand jury's governmental reform recommendations:
Contribution limits: Some of the supervisors already are expressing skepticism about limiting the amount of money that people and political action committees can give to campaigns.
They say it would give an advantage to wealthy people who can fund their own campaigns. And the grand jury itself pointed out that earlier efforts to limit campaign contributions ran afoul of the First Amendment.
So why not attack the conflict-of-interest problem from the other end: Bar supervisors from voting on matters that benefit their campaign contributors who give over a certain amount, say $500? It avoids trampling the First Amendment and doesn't favor wealthy candidates. Many elected bodies do it.
Burt Southard, spokesman for Board of Supervisors Chairman Gary Ovitt, said that approach is being considered.
Form 700s: These so-called statements of economic interest are only filed once a year by state law (commendably, the county posts them online). The grand jury recommends monthly filing. Nobody knows how much that will cost.
If monthly filing proves too expensive, why not quarterly? It would be often enough to keep officials from forgetting gifts and trips they've received but cut the cost by 75 percent. Southard said that is being considered, too.
Ethics commission: It's a great idea, but the price tag -- $500,000 -- seems excessive, especially given that the economic crisis is forcing spending cuts everywhere.
The county already is spending a lot of money on ethics. The post of "ethics resource officer" was created in 2002 with pay of about $57,000 a year. The first ethics officer lasted 3½ years.
The position morphed into "chief county compliance and ethics officer" in 2006, at a salary between $88,000 and $113,000.
The first person to hold that title lasted two years.
Her successor was paid between $98,000 and $125,000. He retired after one year. By then the office had added an assistant at $66,000 to $84,000.
Despite the spiraling costs, county officials' ethics don't seem to have improved measurably.
Many of the questionable things that have happened were approved by the Board of Supervisors:
Then-Assessor Bill Postmus' larding of his office with seven political appointees;
Supervisor-elect Neil Derry's 90-day, $101,343 transition staff;
Former Purchasing Director Jim Lindley's promotion to public health director with no experience or training in public health.
All the ethics officers and ethics commissioners in the world can't impart good judgment on people who are impervious to the lesson.
Cassie MacDuff can be reached at 951-368-9470 or cmacduff@PE.com
http://www.pe.com/columns/cassiemacduff/stories/PE_News_Local_N_ncass08.47b22bf.html
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