Supervisors See Need for Independent Audit of Safety Agencies

By City News Service

Despite some push-back from Riverside County’s two top law enforcement officials, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to proceed with plans to hire an independent auditor to scrutinize operations within public safety agencies to gauge how well they’re managing money, time and resources.

“This is not going to be a deep dive into the spend, but a look at how the system should be balanced going forward,” county CEO Jay Orr told the board. “We will check revenue and (identify) where we can cut. This is not a criticism of the system, but a reaffirmation of the system.”

Orr said an “outside” evaluation of how the District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s Department, Office of the Public Defender and Department of Probation are allocating funds would aid in creating an expenditure “dashboard” before, during and after budget workshops.

All public safety agencies are structurally out of balance heading into the 2015-16 fiscal year. The sheriff’s office is underfunded by an estimated $65 million and is seeking general fund assistance to make up at least part of the budget shortfall, which Sheriff Stan Sniff has blamed on rising labor costs.

Supervisors last month expressed concern about the sheriff’s monetary challenges vis-a-vis mushrooming complaints from a number of cities that contract with the department for law enforcement services.

The sheriff requested -- and the board granted -- a 7.04 percent hike in hourly patrol deputy rates charged to the 17 cities that contract with the county. Sniff argued that the increase was “cost neutral” and reflected the agency’s investment in providing patrol, investigative, forensic and other public safety services for the municipalities.

However, representatives from five of the cities complained that the ever-increasing costs borne by residents for sheriff’s services were becoming untenable. At least one city is examining the possibility of forming a stand- alone police department.

Orr pointed to the third-party audit as a means to directly assess and “address the sheriff’s contract city cost allocation methodology.”

The sheriff bristled at the prospect of an outside firm poking into sheriff’s affairs.

“We’re already at your beck and call without another audit,” Sniff told the board. “There’s a vulnerability of high potential liability. We’re already subject to audits big and small.”

Sniff expressed a preference for the California Department of Justice to handle the type of inquiry sought by the Executive Office.

“I have full confidence in our operations, but they can always be better,” he said. “Table this item and think this through before you take action.”

District Attorney Mike Hestrin, whose agency is starting the next fiscal year around $8 million in the red, said he would “welcome an audit,” but had qualms about the independent approach advocated by Executive Office staff.

“We want to be a good county partner, but we can’t give you just any information you want,” Hestrin said. “My books are always open to you. We will cooperate with any audit. But we can’t share (specific criminal filing) information.”

The county’s top prosecutor, who’s been on the job less than six months and inherited a deficit from his predecessor, suggested using former D.A. Grover Trask, now a partner at a Riverside law firm, to conduct a review of agency expenditures.

Orr replied that Trask was a “friend” to both of them and employing him posed a conflict of interest.

“There’s no distance. This board needs an independent review of expenses,” the CEO said.

Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said he felt it was necessary for an outside party to “drill down and professionally grind you guys to ensure we’re getting every bang for the buck that we can.”

That sentiment was shared by Supervisor John Benoit, who likened an independent audit to the hiring of Chicago-based Huron Consulting Inc. to conduct a top-to-bottom analysis of operations within the Riverside County Regional Medical Center over the last year, resulting in “major economies (which) turned things around at the hospital.”

“We need a comprehensive look,” the supervisor said.

Board Chairman Marion Ashley acknowledged that “no one likes to be audited.”

“Change is a scary thing,” he said. “But this could be a healthy thing that everybody could embrace. Maybe this will clear the air and make government more efficient.”

The supervisors noted that the audit may come with unintended consequences that they’ll have to live with -- namely the prospect that analysts find agencies are being shortchanged in their annual appropriations.

Only Supervisor Chuck Washington opposed the planned review, saying he doubted the county had “exhausted every internal avenue” before shopping around for an independent auditor.

The board voted 4-1 to authorize Orr to initiate the process of finding a firm to handle the audit. Another vote will be needed to settle an actual contract.