Report 2015-504 Recommendation 5 Responses

Report 2015-504: Follow-Up—California Department of Justice: Delays in Fully Implementing Recommendations Prevent It From Accurately and Promptly Identifying All Armed Persons With Mental Illness, Resulting in Continued Risk to Public Safety (Release Date: July 2015)

Recommendation #5 To: Justice, Department of

To fully implement our previous recommendation and ensure that it investigates all significant drops in mental health facility reporting, Justice should revise its procedure to consider drops between each quarter.

60-Day Agency Response

The Department has revised its procedures to send quarterly reports to all mental health facilities regardless whether the facility has shown a decline in reporting from month to month. A letter addressed to the facility director, along with a bar chart illustrating the data from the previous 14 months of reports submitted to the Department, is sent to 1/3 of each reporting mental health facilities on a monthly rotating basis. This will ensure that each mental health facility receives this report on a quarterly basis. A sample copy of the letter and bar chart will be provided for reference.

The Department continues to contact facilities that show a 30% or more reduction in reporting to gather information as to the reason for the reduction. All facilities that show a reduction of 30% or more are offered training by the Department. If the facility wishes to schedule training, the Mental Health Unit will work with the Training, Information, and Compliance Section to schedule training.

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

All Recommendations in 2015-504

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.