Report 2015-032 Recommendation 8 Responses

Report 2015-032: California's Postsecondary Educational Institutions: More Guidance Is Needed to Increase Compliance With Federal Crime Reporting Requirements (Release Date: July 2015)

Recommendation #8 To: University of California, San Diego

San Diego should create written procedures that clearly describe the review process it will undertake to ensure that it is reporting crime statistics consistently and accurately in its annual security reports.

1-Year Agency Response

UC San Diego has created written procedures that describe the Clery crime classification and review process to ensure consistent and accurate reporting of crime statistics in the Annual Security Report.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

UC San Diego is drafting standard operating procedures relating to the review of Clery crime statistics to ensure accurate and consistent reporting in its Annual Security Report (ASR) and its online submission to the US Department of Education (USDOE). In addition, UC San Diego corrected the errors noted in the audit report in the 2015 ASR, which was distributed to the campus community on October 1, 2015.

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

60-Day Agency Response

UCSD is in the process of drafting formal written procedures to ensure that it is accurately reporting crime statistics in its Annual Security Report (ASR) and its online submission to the US Department of Education (USDOE). As standard practice, the UCSD Police Department reviews the OPE Handbook and the Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook on a continuous basis to ensure accurate classifications. The UCSD Police Department also examines new or updated offense codes to ensure proper classification within the Records Management System (RMS). Currently, each case report is reviewed for statistical accuracy against the federal definitions. Every case report undergoes a second assessment and is evaluated specifically for Clery reporting; the results are documented in a separate database. On a monthly basis, the UCSD Police Department compares RMS statistics against the Clery statistical database. The results are verified by a secondary staff employee. The preparation of the crime statistics for the ASR and online submission to the USDOE is reviewed by three staff employees within the UCSD Police Department.

San Diego recently hired a full-time Clery Compliance Officer (CCO) who will assist in classifying crimes. The CCO will also confirm that the statistics in the ASR match the web entries prior to submission. As part of a process of continuous improvement, the UCSD Police Department will implement a comparison of the RMS statistics against the ASR statistics at the sixth month mark. San Diego will correct the errors noted in the audit report in the 2014 ASR due October 1, 2015.

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

All Recommendations in 2015-032

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.