2014-041 - Status of Recommendations - Table 3

2. To ensure the reliability of the ConApp database fields related to the number of students enrolled at the school level, the number of those enrolled students who are eligible to receive free meals, and the number of those students who are eligible to receive reduced-price meals, Education should establish an internal control process such as a systematic review of a sample of the local educational agencies' and direct-funded charter schools' supporting documentation.

1. To increase awareness and transparency about the reasons campus bookstores add markups to publishers' invoice prices for textbooks, UC, CSU, and the community colleges should reevaluate bookstores' pricing policies to ensure that markups are not higher than necessary to support bookstore operations. If the campuses determine that bookstore profits are needed to fund other campus activities, the campuses should seek input from students as necessary to determine whether such purposes are warranted and supported by the student body, particularly when higher textbook prices result.

2. To increase awareness and transparency about the reasons campus bookstores add markups to publishers' invoice prices for textbooks, UC, CSU, and the community colleges should direct bookstores to publicly disclose on an annual basis any amounts they use for purposes that do not relate to bookstore operations, such as contributions they make to campus organizations and activities.

5. To increase the transparency of university funds, the Office of the President should make available annually financial information regarding its funds, including beginning and ending balances; revenues, expenses, and transfers; and the impact of these transactions on the balances from year to year.

26. The university should clarify policies to include a distance test for expenses that employees incur within the vicinity of their headquarters.

6. As soon as possible, the department should hire a permanent OPS director and permanent OPS commanders that are highly qualified staff capable of performing the administrative functions these positions require.

1. To ensure that all counties consistently gauge the cost-effectiveness of their early fraud activities and ongoing investigation efforts for the CalWORKs and food stamp programs, Social Services should work with the counties to develop a formula to regularly perform a cost-effectiveness analysis using information that the counties currently submit.

17. To ensure that its efforts funded by the trust fund are preventing or reducing incidences of child abuse and neglect, Social Services should ensure that the performance measurements are reflected in the grants it awards.

8. To ensure that the Legislature can provide effective oversight of the program, Mental Health should complete and submit as soon as possible its reports to the Legislature about Mental Health's efforts to hire state employees to conduct evaluations and about the impact of Jessica's Law on the program.

13. To increase the use of the telemedicine system, Health Care Services should continue to implement the recommendations that it has adopted from the consultant's review of telemedicine capabilities.

1. Correctional Health Services should provide training to the manager and supervisors involved in the claim authorization process regarding the state rules applicable to claiming travel expenses.

2. Correctional Health Services should discontinue reimbursing employees for expenses claimed in violation of state regulations.

1. Conduct an audit of the leave accounting system during the past three years to identify instances of nonmanagerial, exempt employees working an alternate schedule at an adult correctional facility being charged incorrect amounts of leave for missed days of work.

3. Adjust current employees' leave balances in the leave accounting system to correct any improper charging of leave identified by the audit.

5. In instances where the audit has determined that an employee's leave balance was mischarged but the employee subsequently departed state service, take appropriate measures to remedy any resulting incorrect compensation of the employee for unused leave upon his or her departure, including by seeking repayment of any amount overpaid to the employee.

9. Train all nonmanagerial, exempt employees eligible to work an alternate schedule regarding the proper completion of a time sheet to ensure the employees' leave balances are charged correctly for an absence from work.

8. Train all personnel staff regarding the proper amount of leave to charge those exempt employees working an alternate schedule who miss a day of work.

10. Train all nonmanagerial, exempt employees eligible to work an alternate schedule regarding the proper completion of a time sheet to ensure the employees' leave balances are charged correctly for an absence from work.

1. To ensure that it consistently adheres to requirements in state law when licensing pilots, the board should establish and implement a procedure for approving and monitoring board-appointed physicians.

9. To ensure that the affordable rent policy is enforceable and that only eligible tenants receive the benefit of the policy, Caltrans should adopt regulations in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) if the director determines that it is appropriate to continue to offer affordable rent to certain tenants.

13. To increase transparency and to ensure that it is aware of any financial interest that a subcontractor may have in the program, the Authority should require subcontractors to file statements of economic interest.

4. To ensure that three-year projections of the spill fund's revenues, expenditures, and fund balances, all of which are used to determine fee rates, are based on accurate financial information, the spill office should consider the reduction in the spill fund's costs, as a result of the recovery of indirect administrative costs, when projecting its fund balance moving forward.

5. To prevent under- or over-recovery of federal funds, Fish and Game should regularly reassess whether using budgeted expenditures or actual expenditures will produce the most accurate results.

19. Fish and Game should provide training to those involved with the lease to ensure that it properly accounts for and reconciles future work and payments related to the leased property, that it does not pay operational and equipment expenses with proceeds derived from the lease, and that all parties understand what work Fish and Game expects as the result of the agreement.

3. To ensure that it does not undervalue certain types of leases, the commission should amend its regulations for establishing pipeline rents on state land as staff recommended in the 2010 survey of methods used by agencies in other states to establish pipeline rents.

5. The commission should establish a monitoring program to ensure that the funds generated from granted lands are expended in accordance with the public trust.

1. To ensure that data maintained in CAPES are accurate and complete, HCD should complete its review of the accuracy of the data transferred to CAPES.

2. HCD should ensure that its cleanup efforts are thoroughly documented and retained for future reference.

6. To ensure that it adequately tracks critical information related to its basic functions and mission, the commission should ensure that its system for tracking the number of events, the inspectors it assigns to events, and its revenues and expenditures is compatible with the online program Consumer Affairs is developing so that it may easily import this information into the new program when it is complete.

3. To assist the governor in the development, oversight, and continuous improvement of California's workforce investment system, the state board should continue to exercise its legal authority to review the local boards' plans to, among other things, assure the coordination and nonduplication of services to program participants.

9. To better track and improve the timeliness of determinations for the training benefits program and to assist claimants in understanding self-arranged training requirements, the department should track and report the number of claimants it determines are both eligible and ineligible for the self-arranged training and the reasons for these determinations, to better focus some of its recommendations toward how it can assist claimants in understanding the program's criteria.

10. To better track and improve the timeliness of determinations for the training benefits program and to assist claimants in understanding self-arranged training requirements, the department should track the number of claimants that it finds to be both ineligible for self-arranged training and ultimately ineligible for unemployment benefits and develop strategies to expedite the determination process for these claimants.

12. To address areas in which its staff do not currently have expertise, the division should finalize its field pilot and take subsequent steps to ensure it has qualified staff to provide oversight of accessibility; fire and life safety; and the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing aspects of construction.

36. To ensure that the construction unit complies with the State's procurement laws and policies, General Services should clarify the waiver process in the administrative order governing the small business participation goal.

2. The commission should determine the cause of its lack of compliance with state law requiring it to issue award decisions within 75 days of the date an intervenor submits a compensation claim, and it should determine what actions to take to rectify the problem. The commission should ensure that it has sufficient information, such as detailed tracking information regarding claims, to identify where in the process delays are occurring. If the commission determines that the current 75-day statutory period is unreasonable, it should seek a change in state law.

2. To ensure that the board appropriately carries out its outreach efforts, it should define the specific procedures to accomplish its action strategies for outreach and establish quantitative measures to evaluate the effectiveness of its outreach efforts.

2. For all contracts that involve recreation fund moneys or involve recreation fund enterprises, institute policies that require the contracts to be approved by a Veterans Affairs attorney prior to being executed.

8. Although the Judicial Council has the legal authority to compel the courts to adopt CCMS, to better foster superior court receptiveness to deploying CCMS, the AOC should continue to work with the superior courts that have deployed the civil system to ensure it is addressing their concerns in a timely and appropriate manner.

9. Although the Judicial Council has the legal authority to compel the courts to adopt CCMS, to better foster superior court receptiveness to deploying CCMS, the AOC should work with superior courts to address concerns about hosting data at the California Court Technology Center (Technology Center). Further, the AOC should take steps to ensure that superior courts do not lose productivity or efficiencies by hosting data at the Technology Center.

2. To ensure complete reports to the Legislature, the AOC should review and modify its methodology for excluding certain transactions from the semiannual report to ensure that the AOC is not inadvertently excluding legitimate procurements. Further, the AOC's methodology should ensure that all procurements or contracts—such as those related to court security, court reporters, and interpreters when such services result in payment by a judicial branch entity to a vendor or contractor—are included in the semiannual report unless specifically excluded by state law.

7. To ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data the counties submit into the Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical System (JCPSS), Justice should follow its procedure to send annual summaries of the JCPSS data to the counties for review and to conduct occasional field audits of the counties' records.

9. To ensure that its criminal history system contains complete and accurate data related to juvenile offenders, Justice should implement a procedure similar to the one it employs for the JCPSS to verify the accuracy of information the counties submit.

7. To ensure that transactions reflect the State's priorities regarding businesses owned by disabled veterans, and to comply with requirements in the judicial contracting manual, the courts we reviewed should develop formal policies to implement the DVBE program.