Mendo’s Human Resources Director (and Deputy CEO) Cherie Johnson told the Supervisors last Tuesday that 20 county employees have resigned under the County’s resignation incentive/buy-out program. Johnson added that the savings for those 20 departures was estimated to be worth about $2.1 million, almost $600k of which was General Fund savings. Nobody mentioned anything about replacing any of the people who resigned. Nobody asked what the new budget deficit estimate is with this “savings.” And so far no agenda item has appeared on the Supervisors agenda about the status of vacancies, including these 20 new ones, despite the staff’s previous promise to report on vacancies monthly. Of course, nobody really expected any monthly reports. Mendo simply doesn’t do monthly reporting.
County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison told the Supervisors Tuesday that the County has received a little over half a million dollars since posting the first batch of “power to sell” notices (in the Ukiah Daily Journal), a fundamental tax collection function that hasn’t been done for years. The process has been delayed for years, mostly due to covid and resignations of experienced staff in the tax collector’s office in the wake of the Supervisors’ ill-advised consolidation of the Tax Collector’s office with the Auditor’s office. Apparently, the simple act of reminding tax delinquent property owners that their property is subject to a tax lien foreclosure sale if they don’t pay their long-overdue taxes got a number of them to either pay, or enter a payment plan. Cubbison didn’t estimate the value of the remaining notices or the likelihood of collecting on them or when that might happen. Nor did she predict when the next round of notices would be published. None of the Supervisors expressed any interest in this significant and long-overdue accomplishment, even more important these days since the County says they’re running a multi-million dollar deficit.
Board Watcher Dee Pallesen pointed out some obvious weaknesses in the Board’s proposed reply to the Grand Jury’s follow up complaint that the County has not properly responded to the GJ’s recommendation that a “Quality Assurance Program” should be in place for Family and Children’s Services (FCS) (formerly CPS). The GJ dinged the County years ago for not keeping FCS adequately staffed and thus not providing adequate handling of child abuse, custody, and related cases. The Grand Jury has followed up on this problem for a couple of years and the only remaining item that the County has not properly responded to is the Quality Assurance item, at least according to the Grand Jury.
In the draft response prepared by an ad hoc committee of Supervisors Ted Williams and John Haschak, the County replied to the GJ saying:
“Because FCS had in place a quality assurance program, a summary of that program was provided as part of the response. The Board believes that the July 23, 2024 response complied with California Penal Code. However, the Grand Jury sent a letter dated November 12, 2024, stating that they believed the Board’s response to Recommendation 10 was non-compliant. The non-compliance letter stated that the Board’s ‘response did not provide a complete summary’ and that ‘the summary should include the County FCS policies and procedures which accurately describe the quality assurance program, or if no such policies and procedures exist, a summary of how the quality assurance program functions.’ In response to the non-compliance letter, on December 17, 2024, the Board provided a Supplemental Response to Recommendation 10, that included a more detailed summary of the FCS quality assurance program and explained in greater detail how the program functioned. The Board believes that any perceived non-compliance may be the result of a disconnect between the Grand Jury’s recommendation and the Board’s understanding of that recommendation. However, the Grand Jury’s finding does not explain why the Grand Jury believes that the Board’s response was non-compliant. Therefore, the Board is limited in addressing the Grand Jury’s concerns.
“As an update, FCS has recently restructured the Compliance and Quality Assurance unit. As part of restructuring, FCS is working to contract Case Review and Quality Assurance with the State of California, therefore having a third party (the State) provide the case reviews and the quality assurance over FCS cases. FCS hopes to be in contract with the State by July 1, 2025. [a date which had passed before the Consent Calendar draft response was even considered]. Additionally, the County’s current Self-Assessment [sic], which was discussed in the December 17, 2024 Supplemental Response, is due in November 2025. The County will then develop the System Improvement Plan based upon the County Self-Assessment.”
Given FCS’s chronic understaffing, it’s no surprise that taking time and staff from the line workers in that department to do quality assurance is probably not a priority for them. But if that’s the case, they should just say so and explain exactly what kind of “quality assurance” they (or the state — hah!) is doing and how they plan to improve staffing. Further, if the Quality Assurance Plan means more admin and less service then, Which would you prioritize? However, if the actual “quality” of services is poor then corrective action is required.
Ms. Pallesen picked up on this “disconnect” Tuesday morning and provided chapter and verse from the Grand Jury penal code sections while noting that the Board’s response to this ongoing problem in the County was not much of a response.
Ms. Pallesen explained to the Board that the County/FCS still has no actual Quality Assurance Plan and no Policy and Procedures or equivalent because all the County has done is say they will have something someday based on the County’s own “self-assessment.” Pallesen added that a proper response would include “a summary of the details of implementation — the problem appears to be with the word ‘implementation’.”
Pallesen:
“The grand jury has again pointed out that the response did not provide a detailed summary of implementation and actions taken to implement quality assurance in FCS. This latest response is more of the same. There is a discussion of the process, but no description of implementation. A summary of implementation would include at the very least staffing, timelines, due dates, duties and responsibilities, and hopefully policies and procedures. There is now a reference to restructuring and contracting with the state, but again no details. I do not know who is writing these responses to the grand jury but this response still doesn’t answer the question. So it appears that you are still in violation of the penal code. Your current response states, ‘The board believes that any perceived noncompliance may be the result of a disconnect between the grand jury recommendation and in the board’s understanding of that recommendation.’ The penal code outlines the availability of the grand jury for any clarification for an additional 45 days from the report. So that’s a full year plus 45 days to ask for clarification. If you didn’t understand or if something was missing you should ask. Did you ask? Also, your response says the board believes the July 24 response complied with the penal code. While the grand jury does the work, the presiding judge signs the report. This tells me that the judge did not think you complied with the penal code.”
Obviously, the Supervisors didn’t ask the Grand Jury for clarification. In effect, the draft response said, Trust us, we’re doing fine in our opinion and if the Grand Jury doesn’t think so, it’s the Grand Jury’s failure to understand or be clear.
However, after Ms. Pallesen’s remarks, Supervisor Williams proposed pulling the draft response from the consent calendar. Supervisor/Board Chair Haschak agreed and said the item would be considered separately later in the day.
But the meeting ended without any further discussion of the item.
We’re taking over/under bets on when this item will come back to the Board for proper consideration. Normally, we would say the over/under is six months. But since Ms. Pallesen is following it, it’s likely she will be back before the Board soon to remind them again that they have still not adequately responded to the Grand Jury.
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