Yolo County Grand Jury releases report

Investigations into school safety and election security included

The Yolo County Grand Jury released a finalized report on Thursday, detailing its investigations into areas such as school safety and election security.

The Yolo County Grand Jury is made up of 19 citizens selected by the Superior Court who serve one-year terms. The purpose of the Grand Jury is to act as a citizen watchdog to review, investigate complaints about local government, make annual inquiries into the condition and management of public jails, and to report its findings and recommendations to Yolo County residents.

Due to COVID-19, the 2019-2020 Yolo County Grand Jury term was extended from July 2020 to Dec. 31, 2020 to allow this body enough time to complete the investigations while working remotely since March.

On Thursday, the 2019-2020 Yolo County Grand Jury released its Final Consolidated Report. The report contains six investigative reports and the annual impact analysis titled, “Striving to Make a Difference: Responses to the 2018-2019 Yolo County Grand Jury Report.”

The analysis looks at county and local government responses to the investigative reports published by the Grand Jury last year. The 2019-2020 individual reports contain a total of 53 findings and 30 recommendations.

“In these reports, the 2019-2020 Yolo County Grand Jury made several recommendations to improve the services provided by Yolo County. The potential benefits of the Grand Jury’s recommendations demonstrate the value of its work as an agent for positive change,” said Leslie Field, foreperson of the 2019-2020 Yolo County Grand Jury. “We are pleased to provide these reports to the public.”

Monitoring Compliance with 2017-2018 Yolo County Grand Jury Recommendations

The 2017-2018 Yolo County Grand Jury published six investigative reports, with a combined total of 30 findings and 26 recommendations. The six investigative reports were:

• Inmate Visitation Policy at the Monroe Detention Center
• Juvenile Detention Facility Investigation
• Follow-up: Elections Office Indiscretions and Culpability
• Improving the Yolo County Libraries and Archives
• The Looming Crisis of City Pension and Retirement Medical Costs
• Reporting and Analysis of Child Welfare Statistics

The 2019-2020 Grand Jury followed up on seven of the 26 recommendations to assess their implementation status. Representative and important recommendations were selected from each of the investigative reports, except the Juvenile Detention Facility Investigation, since aspects of this facility were also investigated by the 2018-2019 Grand Jury.

Those seven recommendations (in order of appearance in the original report) are:

• Funding for and implementation of an online system for making visiting appointments at the Yolo County Monroe Detention Center;
• Funding for and implementation of a video visiting system at the Yolo County Monroe Detention Center;
• The Elections Office should maintain documentation of all training classes and individual instruction that includes, at minimum: signatures of individuals attending with date and topic covered;
• Provide a social worker to assist Yolo County Library staff in dealing with homeless, substance-abusing, and mentally ill individuals and families;
• Post a code of appropriate behavior for library patrons;
• Create a simple statistical template and/or graph that shows three-year past (actual) and projected (look back, look forward) pension costs and liabilities and their impact on city budgets;
• The Child, Youth and Family Branch of the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency should submit a proposal to the Board of Supervisors for a continuous quality improvement unit.

This investigation was undertaken to determine the progress made in response to these previous Grand Jury recommendations and to provide a public update on that progress. The 2019-2020 Grand Jury found that agencies have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, all seven recommendations.

For recommendations that have not been fully implemented, the 2019-2020 Grand Jury recommends further updates from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office. The Grand Jury also recommends that the City of West Sacramento and City of Woodland post budget and/or retiree medical and pension costs on their websites.

The Final Consolidated Report containing all the complete individual reports is posted on the Grand Jury’s website.

Daily Democrat
By WOODLAND DAILY DEMOCRAT
September 24, 2020