Report 2013-103 Recommendation 26 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 #26 To: Justice, Department of
To ensure that it can adequately demonstrate that it has made efforts to address outstanding APPS database cases, Justice should require APPS unit staff to document key efforts to resolve these cases and retain this documentation.
1-Year Agency Response
The Department enhanced the APPS database to allow staff to document their efforts to make determinations. In addition, the Department established a procedure which indicates how often outstanding APPS database cases should be reviewed and the required documentation.
- Completion Date: October 2014
- Response Date: October 2014
California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented
6-Month Agency Response
The Department created an APPS Determination Review Form that each APPS unit analyst will complete on a daily basis. Each time a subject is deemed prohibited by an APPS unit analyst, the analyst will document the subjects prohibition and identifying information on the form. Each week, the APPS unit supervisor will perform a random audit of the analysts work. Monthly, the APPS unit manager will perform a random audit of the units work. Additionally, the Department created a monthly statistics spreadsheet to monitor and track the findings from the random audits performed by the APPS unit supervisor and manager. Forms will be retained by the APPS unit and filed in the managers office.
- Completion Date: April 2014
- Response Date: April 2014
California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented
Justice describes its process for reviewing prohibited determinations that staff in the APPS unit have made. However, this recommendation directs Justice's APPS unit staff to record their reasons for being delayed in making a determination. In follow-up discussions, Justice clarified that it is still planning to enhance the APPS database to allow staff to document their efforts to make a determination, as it mentioned in its 60-day response. Accordingly, this recommendation remains partially implemented.
- Auditee did not substantiate its claim of full implementation
- Auditee did not address all aspects of the recommendation
60-Day Agency Response
The Department is pursuing system enhancements to the APPS database as needed to enable staff to continually document APPS determination efforts in an effort to comply with the finding recommendation. 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 is committed to begin work on the needed system enhancements by July 2014. In the interim, BOF management directed APPS staff to document all APPS determination efforts in an Excel Spreadsheet to be maintained on the Bureau of Firearms shared network drive.
- Estimated Completion Date: October 2014
- Response Date: December 2013
California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Partially Implemented
All Recommendations in 2013-103
Agency responses received are posted verbatim.