Report 2013-103 Recommendation 16 Responses

Report 2013-103: Armed Persons With Mental Illness: Insufficient Outreach From the Department of Justice and Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons With Mental Illness (Release Date: October 2013)

Recommendation #16 To: Justice, Department of

As soon as it identifies mental health facilities that have not yet received information about reporting requirements and the online reporting system, Justice should send these facilities the related information.

6-Month Agency Response

System enhancements for quarterly/date range reports were completed by HDC staff and deployed to production on April 17, 2014; however, the Department has not identified any facilities that have not been reporting as required. The Department has also implemented an outreach process to disseminate mental health prohibition reporting information and offer training for new and existing facilities. This program identifies the mental health facilities required to report mental health information and provides the necessary training and support to ensure compliance with the reporting requirements. When the Department identifies a facility that has not received information about the reporting requirements via MHRS or a new facility is identified, the Mental Health Unit will provide technical support and assistance to the facility on the MHRS user enrollment process. The unit manager will forward all relevant facility information to the Training Information and Compliance Section (TICS) manager. The TICS staff will contact the facility to schedule training and forward all relevant information regarding the mental health prohibition reporting process.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

60-Day Agency Response

The Department is pursuing system enhancements to the Mental Health Firearms Prohibition System (MHFPS) as needed to produce quarterly and/or other date range reports needed to track individual mental health facility reporting. AC Buford submitted a management change request to the Department's Hawkins Data Center (HDC) on November 4, 2013, requesting the needed system enhancement. HDC estimates that work on the needed system enhancements will begin in February 2014.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

As indicated in its response to recommendation 15, the Department of Justice is planning to meet with representatives from the Department of Health Care Services to discuss, "methods to better educate facilities regarding state mandated reporting of danger to self/others mental health patients." While these discussions are ongoing, the implementation of this recommendation is pending.

All Recommendations in 2013-103

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.