Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Scathing [Riverside County] Grand Jury Report: Response Committee Formed

The committee will respond to a months-long civil grand jury investigation into the county's $36.4 million contract with KPMG.

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — The Riverside County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved formation of a committee to respond to a civil grand jury report that found a $36 million contract between the county and accounting firm KPMG was largely wasteful.

County CEO George Johnson affirmed that his executive office would "take the lead in the response," but he asked for two board members to scrutinize the staff's work to be certain "we're covering the right topics before bringing everything back to the full board for review."

Supervisors Kevin Jeffries and Jeff Hewitt volunteered to serve on the committee, and the entire board agreed in a 5-0 vote.

"The grand jury is pointing at the Executive Office," Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said. "Only the Executive Office can answer these questions."

The committee will assess what the civil grand jury uncovered during its months-long investigation into the KPMG contract and provide point-by-point responses by Nov. 10.

The 19-member grand jury returned with a report on Aug. 12 detailing what it described as questionable actions on the part of the executive office in securing the KPMG work, as well as a range of doubts that the Netherlands-based professional services firm's actions had really netted the savings and workflow improvements that it claimed.

KPMG was initially hired in the fall of 2015 to examine operations within public safety departments, notably the Sheriff's Department and the District Attorney's Office, to determine what changes might be necessary to make them more efficient and less costly. The original contact cost was $761,600.

In March 2016, the EO recommended, and the board agreed, to retain KPMG under a long-term compact to help public safety agencies implement modifications aimed at enhancing efficiency.

The agreement was amended several times — without competitive bidding — to include evaluations and revisions to practices and procedures in general government agencies, including the Animal Services, Human Resources and Information Technology departments.

The total cost of KPMG's work eventually ballooned 54 times the original contract expenditure to $36.4 million.

Supervisors Marion Ashley and John Tavaglione, both of whom retired at the end of 2018, were stalwart supporters of the contract, while Supervisor Kevin Jeffries and then-Sheriff Stan Sniff were openly opposed, routinely casting doubt on the need for such a significant commitment of county taxpayer dollars, which might otherwise have been invested in bulking up the sheriff's patrol force.

When the KPMG contract closed in June 2019, Jeffries acknowledged that KPMG had "found what we wouldn't have if it had been left up to us."

KPMG executives stood by their work, saying it was incumbent on the county to see that reforms were enacted. There was particular emphasis on the County Performance Unit, and the need to monitor progress within each department. But as the civil grand jurors noted, the CPU "has been largely abandoned."

The grand jury was dubious about claims that the contract had resulted in $100 million in savings from workflow changes, mainly in public safety, over a two-year period.

According to the investigation, the EO represented that lower discretionary appropriations — $89 million — for the sheriff and DA during two fiscal years comprised most of the savings. But the grand jury concluded that, after specific documents were not provided, "claimed savings to the sheriff's and district attorney's offices since implementation of KPMG's recommendations lack validation."

The jury also questioned whether KPMG efficiency recommendations had led to improvements in sheriff's ops, or the restoration of funds previously cut from the sheriff's budget had paved the way to enhanced work patterns.

"No documented evidence of specific cost savings was provided to the grand jury by the EO or the sheriff's department," the jury stated.

Jurors found that the Department of Human Resources had benefited from changes that centralized recruiting to fill county positions, but in the Department of Information Technology, KPMG made recommendations concerning operational changes that the agency had already implemented, and officials said the firm's "work was not helpful to the IT department," according to the report.

Jurors also took issue with the EO crediting KPMG with a program to supply all Department of Animal Services officers with tablet devices to improve their fee collection efforts in the field. The change had been recommended by other entities, according to jurors, who said it was "misleading" to attribute the reform to the vendor.

The jury recommended that "key performance indicators" outlined under the CPU be more closely watched to document efficiencies and savings by agencies.

The panel additionally said the county needs to ensure competitive bidding is involved in all contracts over $500,000, pointing out that the KPMG's agreements were repeatedly amended without the county giving any thought to inviting competitors.

Jurors lastly said the board should re-examine, in total, the initiatives put in place under the KPMG work to "achieve benefits and cost savings," and that the board consider establishing a new "independent department," similar to the Office of the Auditor-Controller, to measure to what extent agencies are following through with reforms and what the county is gaining.

Patch.com
By City News Service, News Partner
August 25, 2020

Riverside County’s deal with KPMG is old news and skips employee input

Blog note: This Letter to the Editor, printed in the Riverside Press-Enterprise refers to an earlier article about a Riverside County Grand Jury report.

Re “What did Riverside County get for $35 million consultant”? (Aug. 19):

The recently published grand jury report on the results (or lack thereof) of Riverside County’s deal with KPMG is old news to anyone who works for Riverside County.

For years, SEIU 721 members like myself have been sounding the alarm that the KPMG experiment was a waste of time that undermined its own stated goals.

In no universe was throwing away nearly $35 million on an outside consultant ever going to save the county money.

Instead of working with county staff members, who understand all the ins and outs of serving our county’s 2.5 million residents, to identify ways to improve efficiency, county leadership instead quarreled with workers constantly and eagerly pursued KPMG’s “cost savings” ideas.

It’s fitting that the legacy of our former county supervisors, who preached “fiscal responsibility” to squeeze every penny they could out of hardworking public servants, is a $43 million black hole (once you factor in the cancelled software contract) that did nothing for the people of Riverside County.

At least they have 50,000 pages of useless analysis to keep them occupied in retirement.

— David Warpness, La Quinta

August 24, 2020

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Humboldt County pushes back on [Humboldt County] grand jury’s ‘custody and corrections’ recommendations

While this year’s civil grand jury called for significant changes in the way Humboldt County employs mental health workers, manages its facilities and incorporates state mental health laws, the county’s responses this week say implementing the jury’s recommendations is not so simple.

The jury had called for the county not to contract third-party mental health services until it had exhausted all attempts to recruit in-house staff.

It also asked the county to develop an infrastructure plan for its facilities, and to incorporate Laura’s Law, a California policy that develops an outpatient treatment program for people with a history of mental health problems that lead to incarceration or violence.

“Adoption of Assisted Outpatient Treatment in Humboldt County would allow for longer and more detailed involuntary holds for mental health evaluation and treatment,” the jury wrote in its report, which was released in June.

But the county’s departments say they may not be able to implement all of the jury’s asks. The county board of supervisors, for instance, cites its existing facilities master plan as reason it can’t develop a comprehensive infrastructure plan for its buildings — at least not within the timeline that the jury suggests.

The county’s behavioral health department has already provided a training for county staff on Laura’s Law, but the board states it would take far more departments to come on board for the program to be built sustainably.

It also holds off promising to expand its mobile response team to “around-the-clock” hours, saying it would need more funding to make that possible.

The county sheriff’s office, meanwhile, states in its response that staffing at the Humboldt County jail has faced shortages forever, creating a need for an outside corporation to be contracted for some of the work.

“We have been unable to recruit and retain quality personnel for these key positions,” the sheriff’s office’s response reads. “I agree that the County needs to address this concern as soon as possible.”

The Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (or DHHS) also pushes back on some of the jury’s findings, including the report’s suggestion that third-party contractors are hired to “shield the County from lawsuits.”

“Liability is not a consideration when determining whether to utilize a contractor,” the health department’s response states. “DHHS expects services provided by both contractors and DHHS staff to be of high quality and in compliance with State and Federal regulations.”

Eureka Times-Standard
By SHOMIK MUKHERJEE
August 24, 2020

[Riverside County] Grand Jury Finds $36M KPMG Project Wasted RivCo Taxpayer Dollars

The project was supposed to find savings and inefficiencies in county departments, but it cost more than it saved, the report found.

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — A scathing grand jury report released this month found that a four-year "cost cutting" project in Riverside County — for which the county doled out more than $36 million — was woefully wasteful.

"While the grand jury found some limited evidence of cost savings and other benefits, no evidence was provided that the KPMG County Transformation Project came close to paying for itself," the grand jury report found. "There still may be considerable savings and other benefits to be derived if the county follows up on recommended initiatives from the project. However, unless and until new savings and benefits are realized, there is more justification to label the project wasteful rather than beneficial."

The "KPMG County Transformation Project" was initially approved by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors in September 2015. At that time, the county agreed to pay international accounting and consulting firm KPMG $761,600 to find efficiencies and cut costs in public safety services, including the sheriff's department, the district attorney's office, the public defender's office, and the probation department.

Over the next two years, the contract was amended to pay KPMG millions more to find savings and inefficiencies in 20 additional county departments, including the executive office.

In total, the county agreed to pay KPMG $36.4 million for its services.

The 2019-2020 Riverside County Civil Grand Jury report entitled "KPMG County Transformation Project: Benefit or Millions Squandered?" also found other expensive missteps, including the attempted implementation of a Workday computer system in Human Resources that was canceled and cost the county "at least an additional $8 million."

The grand jury also found that the county abandoned a key initiative to track performance by departments and the board of supervisors, despite promising to do so. The county "has not followed-up on KPMG recommendations that could yield further savings and efficiencies," the report found.

Evidence provided to the grand jury by the county's executive office to support completion on some of KPMG's recommendations "was incomplete, dubious, misleading, or not provided at all. Thus, the veracity of information provided to the board is questionable," the report found.

Moreover, even though the cost of the KPMG contract expanded to more than 54 times the size of the original September 2015 agreement, the county sought no additional bids for any of the amendments, the grand jury report found.

The county also paid KPMG "a considerable hourly rate for tens of thousands of hours of work without quantifiable deliverables," which was in conflict with board policy, the report found.

There was some "limited cost savings" from the KPMG County Transformation Project in the county's purchasing and fleet services departments, but not so in other departments, according to the report.

" ... assertions by the [executive office] to the board of supervisors of greater savings exceeding the cost of the project have not been supported and are questionable," the report found.

The grand jury report recommends that the board of supervisors "direct, track, and report on departments continuing implementation of KPMG recommendations." The report also recommends that the county establish an independent agency, such as an internal audit department, to track management, completion, and results of similar projects.

In the future, before the board makes large amendments to professional services contracts, it must first put the projects out for competitive bids, the report also recommended.

The sheriff as well as supervisors on the Riverside County board have 60 days to respond to the report. The Riverside County Executive Office has 90 days to respond.

Patch.com
By Toni McAllister, Patch Staff
August 24, 2020

Saturday, August 22, 2020

An early warning in Santa Cruz County

Six weeks ago, the [Santa Cruz] grand jury urged fire operation improvements

Crews this week are battling one of the most devastating wildfires in the history of Santa Cruz County, less than two months after the county grand jury admonished the county to improve its firefighting operations.

As of this writing, approximately 48,000 residents from Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties had to move out of their homes swiftly as the out-of-control CZU August Lightning Complex fire swept through brushland and forests. Big Basin Redwoods State Park has been destroyed and at least 50 structures have been lost, though the toll is likely to rise to “triple digits” after a full accounting is made once the smoke clears, a Cal Fire official said Thursday.

Only last month, the Santa Cruz County grand jury released a scathing indictment on fire readiness in the county, warning that “residents are at increased risk of fire danger due to the lack of risk management for wildfire.” It’s unlikely that the systemic improvements recommended by the grand jury might have stopped the devastation currently taking place; lightning-ignited fires throughout California have stretched firefighting resources thin this week. At least 1,700 firefighters were working fires in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties on Thursday, and those fires were only four of approximately 300 fires reported throughout California.

The grand jury entitled its 97-page report “Ready? Aim? Fire! Santa Cruz County on the Hot Seat.”

At issue is the relatively large “wildland urban interface” in Santa Cruz County that seems to be complicated by an overly tangled system of bureaucratic management.

The interface, known in fire-suppression circles as WUI, is defined by the U.S. Forest Service as communities located in areas conducive to large-scale wildland fires with the potential of posing significant threats to human life or property. In Santa Cruz County, more than half of all residents live in WUI zones. The Forest Service reports that Santa Cruz has the largest percentage of WUI of all the California counties.

According to the grand jury, fire prevention and suppression systems in the county are parceled out to what it refers to as a “dizzying nature” of different fire districts, community service areas, state fire battalions and city fire departments. The grand jury noted that counties with much larger populations, like Los Angeles County and Contra Costa, manage to administer complicated fire operations from a single administrative department.

The grand jury even drew up an organizational chart to illustrate the dramatic differences in the three counties.

The grand jury also criticized the county for updating its hazard response plan every five years, saying it should be happening more often due to the large number of people living in WUI. It also noted that, among other things, too many fire agencies in the county are not filing standard response reports, that communication among some agencies and citizens is sporadic, that potential access routes during evacuations are not clearly defined.

Interestingly, the grand jury specifically notes that a wildlife alert camera used as an early detection device, located on a peak near Bonny Doon, does not adequately track the surroundings with unobstructed views. That camera was destroyed Wednesday night by the CZU August Lightning Complex fire; the camera recorded its own immolation.

In the end, the grand jury came up with 30 different findings that noted deficiencies in the overall operations of fire suppression, including inefficiencies in administration, alerts and public education. And it had 25 recommendations for improvements, including a recommendation that the county should consider a governing structure that would tie all fire agencies together “with common leadership, objectives, sharing of data, and maximized use of resources.”

The need for improvements is growing ever more critical, according to the grand jury.

“As the specter of climate change increases, so does the fear and likelihood of more wildfires in populated areas,” according to the report. “It is now abundantly clear that climate change has had, and will continue to have, a powerful impact on large scale fire risk in California.”

In its introduction, the grand jury noted that Santa Cruz County residents “would benefit from greater efficiency and transparency from the multitude of fire agencies in the county, with the goal of improving preparedness and response.”

voicesofmontereybay.org
By Joe Livernois
August 21, 2020