Supervisor Seeks to Uncover County's Liabilities

By PAUL J. YOUNG, City News Service:

Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries next week will be asking his colleagues to support lifting the veil on the county’s liability fund so that taxpaying residents have a better understanding of what’s being paid out to settle lawsuits, and which agencies are the sources of civil actions.

“It’s a transparency issue because these kinds of losses ought to at least be attributed to the budgets of the agencies that incur them,” Jeffries’ chief of staff, Jeff Greene, told City News Service. “We’re not looking to punish a particular agency or have them lay people off because of a legal judgment. But we need to nail down the true costs of running an office. The millions of dollars spent on these settlements and judgments every year is not included in our budget.”

Jeffries’ proposal, titled Financial Responsibility for Future Litigation and Claims Against County Agencies, will be introduced during the Board of Supervisors’ policy agenda Tuesday.

According to Greene, the Department of Human Resources maintains a “risk management fund” into which all county agencies make deposits each fiscal year -- but the amount contributed, how each contribution level is reckoned and how much goes out of the fund are a mystery.

CNS requested recent figures from the Executive Office, but the information was not immediately available.

During each Tuesday meeting, the board breaks for executive -- or closed -- session to review pending litigation and discuss case settlements. Only the most general information is publicly disclosed. Greene acknowledged that the current proposal would be a means to make more details known.

That would happen via an appeals process handled in open session. Jeffries is asking for board backing to have Executive Office staff study the feasibility of having an agency at the center of litigation cover the losses stemming from a settlement or judgment against the county.

If the agency believes the payout would create too great a financial strain, it could choose to argue as much before the board.

“The county could still agree to absorb the loss up front, but there should be a little more accountability and transparency when these sums are being paid out to various people,” Greene told CNS.

Jeffries has been dismayed by the “regular stream” of payouts to dispose lawsuits, according to Greene.

“And it’s all off-budget,” he said. “It’s stunning when you look at the numbers and consider how short we are to pay for existing services.”

During hearings on the 2014-15 budget, Jeffries complained about how funds are prioritized, noting that he could not get money enough to put swing- sets in a Good Hope park while some agencies intentionally exhausted their budgets at the end of the last fiscal year to ensure they received the same level of appropriations this year.

The supervisor vowed to “drill into” departments’ budgets to confirm the legitimacy of expenditures.

Greene said he anticipated resistance to the supervisor’s latest proposal.

“We expect there will be several unhappy offices,” he said. “There may not be another vote on the dais to move this forward, but we hope the votes will be there to at least examine the process, even if there’s ultimately no action to change policy.”

(IMAGE via Shutterstock)