Report 2008-113 Recommendation 3 Responses
Report 2008-113: Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board: It Has Begun Improving the Victim Compensation Program, but More Remains to Be Done (Release Date: December 2008)
Recommendation #3 To: Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board, California
The board should establish a complementary set of goals designed to measure its success in maximizing assistance to victims and their families. These goals should include, but not be limited to, one that focuses on the correlation of compensation payments to program support costs and one that establishes a target fund balance needed to avoid financial shortfalls. As it monitors the goals it has created, the board should ensure that its cost structure is not overly inflexible and that it is carrying out its support activities in the most cost-effective manner possible.
Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From January 2011
As stated in our December 2009 one-year response to the audit, the board has established key goals for measuring the implementation of its strategic plan and its success in maximizing assistance to victims. In April of 2010, the board identified a specific goal for CalVCP support costs based on the BSA recommended method of calculating support costs as a correlation between compensation and program support costs. Our goal is to reduce CalVCP program and support costs to 20 percent of annual claims payments plus program and support costs, exclusive of revenue generating costs. We plan to reach this goal by 2014, which is two years following the anticipated completion of the CaRES claims processing system modification project. We ended 2009-10 at 26 percent, continuing the downward trend from 35 percent in 2004-05 to 28 percent in 2008-09. The Board plans to meet the 20 percent goal through continued process improvements (including technological and operational changes) enabling us to process increasing numbers of applications and bills while continuing our efforts to reduce processing times. The 20 percent goal will also include the workforce cap and collective bargaining reductions from the Budget Act of 2010. It is our position that a more appropriate method of calculating our administrative support costs is the traditional method showing those costs as a percent of total program costs. Using this methodology, our 2009-10 admin costs were 7 percent of total claims payments, program costs, and administrative support costs. Given either methodology of calculating the support cost ratio, we consider this BSA recommendation fully implemented. (2010-041, p. 137)
California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented
All Recommendations in 2008-113
Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.