2012-041 - Table 3
Auditee, Report Title, Number, and Issue Date | Recommendation | # Years | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
K THRU 12 EDUCATION | ||||||
California Department of Education California's Charter Schools: Some Are Providing Meals to Students, but a Lack of Reliable Data Prevents the California Department of Education From Determining the Number of Students Eligible for or Participating in Certain Federal Meal Programs 2010-104 ** (Issue Date: 10/21/2010) |
**2. To ensure that it maximizes the benefits from the State’s investment in the CNIPS database, Education should require the school food authorities to submit a monthly Claim for Reimbursement for each site under their jurisdiction in addition to their consolidated claims. |
2 | ||||
3. To ensure that it maximizes the benefits from the State’s investment in the CNIPS database, Education should establish a timeline for the school food authorities to comply with the requirement. |
2 | |||||
Commission on Teacher Credentialing Commission on Teacher Credentialing: Despite Delays in Discipline of Teacher Misconduct, the Division of Professional Practices Has Not Developed an Adequate Strategy or Implemented Processes That Will Safeguard Against Future Backlogs 2010-119 (Issue Date: 04/07/2011) |
1. The Commission should seek a legal opinion from the attorney general to determine the legal authority and extent to which the committee may delegate to the division the discretionary authority to close investigations of alleged misconduct without committee review, and take all necessary steps to comply with the attorney general’s advice. |
1 | ||||
2. Once the Commission has received the attorney general’s legal advice regarding the extent to which the committee may delegate case closures to the division, the commission should undertake all necessary procedural and statutory changes to increase the number of cases the committee can review each month. |
1 | |||||
3. The division should provide the training and oversight, and should take any other steps needed, to ensure that the case information in its database is complete, accurate, and consistently entered to allow for the retrieval of reliable case management information. |
1 | |||||
4. To adequately address the weaknesses in its processing of reports of misconduct, the division should revisit management’s reports and processes for overseeing the investigations of misconduct to ensure that the reports and practices provide adequate information to facilitate reduction of the time elapsed to perform critical steps in the review process. |
1 | |||||
5. The division should ensure that its reports and practices provide adequate information to facilitate prompt requests for information surrounding reports of misconduct from law enforcement agencies, the courts, schools, and knowledgeable individuals. |
1 | |||||
6. The division should ensure that its reports and practices provide adequate information to facilitate an understanding of the reasons for delays in investigating individual reports of misconduct without having to review the paper files for the cases. |
1 | |||||
HIGHER EDUCATION | ||||||
California State University California State University: It Needs to Strengthen Its Oversight and Establish Stricter Policies for Compensating Current and Former Employees 2007-102.1 ** (Issue Date: 11/06/2007) |
**2. Strengthen its policy governing the reimbursement of relocation expenses. Additionally, the board should require the chancellor to disclose the amounts of relocation reimbursements to be offered to incoming executives. |
4 | ||||
University of California University of California: Although the University Maintains Extensive Financial Records, It Should Provide Additional Information to Improve Public Understanding of Its Operations 2010-105 ** (Issue Date: 07/28/2011) |
**3. To help improve accountability in the university’s budget process, and to help minimize the risk of unfair damage to its reputation, the university should take additional steps to increase the transparency of its budget process. Specifically, the Office of the President should continue its efforts to increase the transparency of its budget process beyond campus administrators to all stakeholders, including students, faculty, and the general public. For example, the Office of the President could make information related to its annual campus budget amounts, such as annual campus budget letters and related attachments, available on its Web site. |
1 | ||||
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES | ||||||
Department of Health Services^ Department of Health Services: Its Licensing and Certification Division Is Struggling to Meet State and Federal Oversight Requirements for Skilled Nursing Facilities 2006-106 (Issue Date: 04/12/2007) |
1. To ensure that district offices consistently investigate complaints and include all relevant documentation in the complaint files, Health Services should clarify its policies and procedures, provide training as necessary, and periodically monitor district office performance to ensure compliance. |
5 | ||||
2. Consider working with the Department of Personnel Administration† to adjust the salaries of its staff to make them more competitive with those of other state agencies seeking similarly qualified candidates. |
5 | |||||
Department of Health Care Services Department of Health Care Services: Although Notified of Changes in Billing Requirements, Providers of Durable Medical Equipment Frequently Overcharged Medi-Cal 2007-122 (Issue Date: 06/17/2008) |
1. Develop an administratively feasible means of monitoring and enforcing current Medi-Cal billing and reimbursement procedures for medical equipment. |
4 | ||||
2. Design and implement a cost-effective approach that adequately addresses the risk of overpayment and ensures that all providers are potentially subject to an audit. |
4 | |||||
Department of Social Services Department of Social Services: For the CalWORKs and Food Stamp Programs, It Lacks Assessments of Cost-Effectiveness and Misses Opportunities to Improve Counties' Antifraud Efforts 2009-101 ** (Issue Date: 11/03/2009) |
**6. Social Services should provide counties with feedback on how to correct and prevent errors that it detects during this review. |
2 | ||||
Department of Community Services and Development Department of Community Services and Development: Delays by Federal and State Agencies Have Stalled the Weatherization Program and Improvements Are Needed to Properly Administer Recovery Act Funds 2009-119.2 (Issue Date: 02/02/2010) |
1. Once Community Services has received plans from local service providers, it should make any necessary adjustments in its state plan to accurately reflect average costs per home for weatherization assistance and the estimated number of homes to be weatherized under the program. |
2 | ||||
Department of Mental Health‡ Sex Offender Commitment Program: Streamlining the Process for Identifying Potential Sexually Violent Predators Would Reduce Unnecessary or Duplicative Work 2010-116 ** (Issue Date: 07/12/2011) |
**3. To ensure that it will have enough qualified staff to perform evaluations, Mental Health should continue its efforts to obtain approval for a new position classification for evaluators. If the State Personnel Board† approves the new classification, Mental Health should take steps to recruit qualified individuals as quickly as possible. Additionally, Mental Health should continue its efforts to train its consulting psychologists to conduct evaluations. |
1 | ||||
CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION | ||||||
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: It Fails to Track and Use Data That Would Allow It to More Effectively Monitor and Manage Its Operations 2009-107.1 ** (Issue Date: 09/08/2009) |
**6. Corrections should develop a staffing plan that allocates teacher and instructor positions at each institution based on the program needs of its inmate population. |
3 | ||||
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: Inmates Sentenced Under the Three Strikes Law and a Small Number of Inmates Receiving Specialty Health Care Represent Significant Costs 2009-107.2 ** (Issue Date: 05/18/2010) |
**3. To ensure that custody staffing meets institutional needs, and to provide staff the opportunity to use the amount of leave that they earn in the future, Corrections should update its staffing formulas to accurately represent each of the factors for which custody staff are unavailable to work, such as vacation or sick leave. In addition, Corrections should create a policy for regularly scheduled reviews of the data used in the staffing formulas. |
2 | ||||
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act: State Agencies Do Not Fully Comply With the Act, and Local Governments Could Do More to Address Their Clients' Needs 2010-106 (Issue Date: 11/18/2010) |
1. To ensure that they meet their constituents’ language needs, state agencies should make certain that they accurately assess and report their clients’ language needs to the State Personnel Board.† State agencies should also analyze formally their language survey results and consider other available bilingual resources to determine their true staffing deficiencies. Further, state agencies should establish procedures to identify the written materials that the Act requires them to translate into other languages and ensure that such materials are translated or made accessible to the agencies’ LEP clients. Finally, state agencies should develop detailed corrective action plans describing how and when they will address their staffing and written materials deficiencies. In addition, they should submit their corrective action plans to the State Personnel Board as part of the state agencies’ overall implementation plans. |
1 | ||||
2. Public Health and Corrections should develop procedures to detect and prevent contract splitting. |
1 | |||||
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Investigations of Improper Activities by State Employees: Delay in Reassigning an Incompetent Psychiatrist, Misuse of State Resources, Failure to Protect the Security of Confidential Documents, Theft of Registration Fees, and Other Violations of State Law I2010-2 ** (Issue Date: 01/18/2011) |
**2. Obtain monthly logs from the alarm company and verify that overtime reported for responding to building alarm activations is consistent with the logs. |
1 | ||||
BUSINESS, TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING | ||||||
High-Speed Rail Authority High-Speed Rail Authority: It Risks Delays or an Incomplete System Because of Inadequate Planning, Weak Oversight, and Lax Contract Management 2009-106 ** (Issue Date: 04/29/2010) |
**2. In order to respond effectively to circumstances that could significantly delay or halt the program, the Authority should ensure that it implements planned actions related to managing risk. |
2 | ||||
**4. To ensure that it does not run out of funds for administrative and preconstruction tasks prematurely, the Authority should track expenditures for these activities and develop a long-term spending plan for them. It also should develop procedures and systems to ensure that it complies with Recovery Act requirements. |
2 | |||||
California Department of Transportation California Department of Transportation: Its Capital Outlay Support Program Should Strengthen Budgeting Practices, Refine Its Performance Measures, and Improve Internal Controls 2010-122 ** (Issue Date: 04/28/2011) |
**2. To improve performance metrics related to the support program, Caltrans should devise, use, and publicize a consistent method for reporting the support-to-capital ratio on its Web site and in other reports to the public. Further, Caltrans should recalculate past support-to-capital ratios using the method devised to allow for comparison across years. |
1 | ||||
3. To improve performance metrics related to the support program, Caltrans should develop goals—and publicly report on the progress against those goals—for the support-to-capital ratio, based on project type—State Transportation Improvement Project or the State Highway Operation and Protection Program—and project size. |
1 | |||||
NATURAL RESOURCES | ||||||
Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery: Deficiencies in Forecasting and Ineffective Management Have Hindered the Beverage Container Recycling Program 2010-101 ** (Issue Date: 06/22/2010) |
1. The department should continue with its efforts to implement regulation changes that will require beverage distributors to register with the department and to notify the department if another entity has agreed to report and make payments on behalf of that beverage distributor. |
2 | ||||
STATE AND CONSUMER SERVICES | ||||||
Department of General Services Department of General Services: It No Longer Strategically Sources Contracts and Has Not Assessed Their Impact on Small Businesses and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprises 2009-114 ** (Issue Date: 07/08/2010) |
**2. To ensure that it maximizes the savings to the State for future purchases, General Services should follow the procedures for identifying strategic sourcing opportunities included in the IAU’s procedures manual. To ensure that it is effectively identifying new strategic sourcing opportunities, General Services should work to obtain comprehensive and accurate data on the specific items that state agencies are purchasing, including exploring options for obtaining such data for agencies that do not have enterprise-wide systems and therefore would not be using the additional functionality of the eProcurement system. Until it obtains such data, General Services should work with state agencies to identify detailed purchases for categories that it identifies through the State Contract and Procurement Regristration System (SCPRS) as viable opportunities for strategically sourcing. For example, if based on its review of SCPRS data, General Services identifies a particular category that it believes is a good candidate for strategic sourcing, it should work with those state agencies that accounted for the most purchases within the category to determine the types and volume of specific goods purchased to further analyze the types of goods to strategically source. General Services should assess any need for additional resources based on the savings it expects to achieve. |
2 | ||||
3. To provide decision makers with the information necessary to determine the true costs and benefits of strategic sourcing, General Services should evaluate any impact strategic sourcing has on small business and DVBE participation in terms of number of contracts awarded and amounts paid to small businesses and DVBEs within the categories being strategically sourced. Specifically, for goods that were strategically sourced, General Services should compare the number of contracts awarded to small businesses and DVBEs before they were strategically sourced with those awarded through such contracts after they were strategically sourced. This effort should include contracts awarded by General Services and other state agencies. |
2 | |||||
4. To evaluate the effectiveness of the off ramp in providing opportunities for small business and DVBE participation, General Services should track the number and dollar amounts of contracts that state agencies award through the use of the off ramps in strategically sourced and other mandatory statewide contracts. General Services’ evaluation also should consider the extent to which an off ramp affects the monetary benefits that result from statewide contracts designed to leverage the State’s purchasing power. |
2 | |||||
5. To ensure that small business and DVBE subcontractors comply with the commercially useful function requirements, General Services should develop guidance for state agencies on how to ensure that subcontractors perform commercially useful functions if it believes state agencies making the purchases through statewide contracts should be responsible for this task. In addition, General Services should monitor, on a sample basis, whether state agencies are ensuring compliance with these requirements. General Services could leverage its efforts by working with other state agencies to ensure that subcontractors claiming to have provided the goods and services to the purchasing agency did, in fact, perform the work for which they are invoicing the state agencies. |
2 | |||||
6. To improve the integrity of its monitoring of pricing compliance, General Services should implement procedures to help ensure that usage reports reflect the actual items received and prices paid by the state agencies that purchased the items. For example, on a periodic basis, it could select a sample of purchases from the usage reports and work with purchasing state agencies to confirm that the prices and quantity of items reported reconcile with the invoices submitted by the contractor. |
2 | |||||
LABOR AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT | ||||||
Employment Development Department Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act: State Agencies Do Not Fully Comply With the Act, and Local Governments Could Do More to Address Their Clients' Needs 2010-106 (Issue Date: 11/18/2010) |
1. To ensure that they meet their constituents’ language needs, state agencies should make certain that they accurately assess and report their clients’ language needs to the State Personnel Board. State agencies should also analyze formally their language survey results and consider other available bilingual resources to determine their true staffing deficiencies. Further, state agencies should establish procedures to identify the written materials that the Act requires them to translate into other languages and ensure that such materials are translated or made accessible to the agencies’ LEP clients. Finally, state agencies should develop detailed corrective action plans describing how and when they will address their staffing and written materials deficiencies. In addition, they should submit their corrective action plans to the State Personnel Board as part of the state agencies’ overall implementation plans. |
1 | ||||
GENERAL GOVERNMENT | ||||||
Department of Food and Agriculture Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act: State Agencies Do Not Fully Comply With the Act, and Local Governments Could Do More to Address Their Clients' Needs 2010-106 (Issue Date: 11/18/2010) |
1. To ensure that they meet their constituents’ language needs, state agencies should make certain that they accurately assess and report their clients’ language needs to the State Personnel Board. State agencies should also analyze formally their language survey results and consider other available bilingual resources to determine their true staffing deficiencies. Further, state agencies should establish procedures to identify the written materials that the Act requires them to translate into other languages and ensure that such materials are translated or made accessible to the agencies’ LEP clients. Finally, state agencies should develop detailed corrective action plans describing how and when they will address their staffing and written materials deficiencies. In addition, they should submit their corrective action plans to the State Personnel Board as part of the state agencies’ overall implementation plans. |
1 | ||||
Department of Finance General Obligation Bonds: The Departments of Water Resources and Finance Should Do More to Improve Their Oversight of Bond Expenditures 2010-117 ** (Issue Date: 05/19/2011) |
**3. To ensure that expenditures were consistent with bond laws and that the project achieved the intended benefits or outcomes agreed to when the project was originally awarded, Finance should conduct audits of, or approve and assure that, Water Resources and other agencies obtain audits of, Strategic Growth Plan bond expenditures. |
1 | ||||
LEGISLATIVE, JUDICIAL, AND EXECUTIVE | ||||||
State Controller's Office State Mandates: Operational and Structural Changes Have Yielded Limited Improvements in Expediting Processes and in Controlling Costs and Liabilities 2009-501 (Issue Date: 10/15/2009) |
1. To ensure that it can meet its responsibilities, including a heightened focus on audits of state mandates, the Controller should work with Finance to obtain sufficient resources. |
3 | ||||
2. The Controller should increase its efforts to fill vacant positions in its Mandated Cost Audits Bureau. |
3 | |||||
Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento Sacramento and Marin Superior Courts: Both Courts Need to Ensure That Family Court Appointees Have Necessary Qualifications, Improve Administrative Policies and Procedures, and Comply With Laws and Rules 2009-109 ** (Issue Date: 01/20/2011) |
1. To ensure that its FCS mediators are qualified, the Sacramento superior and family courts should update the current mediators’ official personnel files with any missing information. |
1 | ||||
Administrative Office of the Courts Administrative Office of the Courts: The Statewide Case Management Project Faces Significant Challenges Due to Poor Project Management 2010-102 ** (Issue Date: 02/08/2011) |
1. To better manage costs of future IT projects, the AOC should estimate costs at the inception of projects. |
1 | ||||
2. To better manage costs of future IT projects, the AOC should employ appropriate budget and cost management tools to allow it to appropriately budget, track, manage, and estimate costs. |
1 | |||||
3. To better manage costs of future IT projects, the AOC should ensure that cost estimates are accurate and include all relevant costs, including costs that superior courts will incur. |
1 | |||||
4. To better manage costs of future IT projects, the AOC should disclose costs that other entities will likely incur to the extent it can reasonably do so. |
1 | |||||
5. To better manage costs of future IT projects, the AOC should update cost estimates on a regular basis and when significant assumptions change. |
1 | |||||
**10. To ensure that future major IT projects receive appropriate independent oversight over technical aspects and project management, the AOC should obtain IV&V and IPO services at the beginning of the projects and ensure this independent oversight is in place throughout and follows best practices and industry standards appropriate for the size and complexity of the project. |
1 |
‡As of July 1, 2012, the California Department of Mental Health became the new Department of State Hospitals.
^On July 1, 2007, the Department of Health Services was reorganized and became two departments—the Department of Health Care Services and the Department of Public Health. The Department of Public Health is now responsible for monitoring skilled nursing facilities.
**Other recommendations pertaining to this audit, which have been fully implemented, can be found in Table 2.
†As of July 1, 2012, the State Personnel Board and the Department of Personnel Administration were combined to create the California Department of Human Resources.