2019-041 - Status of Recommendations - Table 3

11. To ensure that it has a method to hold charter schools accountable for their educational programs, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should, as a best practice, strengthen its authorization process by using the State Education Board's criteria for evaluating petitions.

12. To ensure compliance with state law, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should immediately establish a procedure to periodically review and update its charter school policy to include all of the requirements in state law.

13. To ensure compliance with state law, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should immediately review petitions to ensure they include all of the requirements in state law at the time of their approval.

15. To ensure compliance with state law, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should immediately track its actual costs for providing oversight and verify that its oversight fees do not exceed legal limits.

18. To better ensure effective oversight of its charter schools' finances, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should place a district representative as a nonvoting member on each charter school's governing board.

20. To ensure that charter schools work toward the academic goals established in their charters, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should adopt an academic oversight policy that includes steps for working with charter schools with poor performance results.

22. Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should maintain active memorandums of understanding with its charter schools that describe the district's oversight responsibilities and ensure the schools meet the measurable student outcomes to which they have agreed.

27. To ensure that it is able to identify high risk situations and deter repeat offenders, Santa Rita should specifically track all gassing attacks and use the tracking data as a tool to prevent future gassing attacks.

30. To better ensure effective oversight of its charter schools' finances, Antelope Valley Union should place a district representative as a nonvoting member on each charter school's governing board.

14. To ensure that it does not underreport crime statistics in its annual security reports, Bakersfield should create and begin following written procedures by August 2018 that clearly describe the Clery Act crime identification processes it will follow. These processes should include maintaining contemporaneous lists of Clery Act crimes that occur.

19. To ensure Bakersfield requests and reports Clery Act crimes from local law enforcement, the institution should by August 2018 create and begin following a procedure, in conjunction with a written agreement with local law enforcement, to obtain crime statistics for the annual security report.

35. To ensure it properly informs students and employees, Bakersfield should notify its students and employees and update the U.S. DOE about the corrected Clery Act statistics as soon as possible.

36. To ensure that its annual security report's crime statistics and the statistics it submits to the U.S. DOE align, Bakersfield should reconcile these statistics before publishing its reports or submitting the data to the U.S. DOE.

23. To ensure it is efficiently using its resources, the district should eliminate its board members' automobile or transportation allowances and instead reimburse them based on their business mileage or transit use.

6. To limit its risk and to clarify its roles and responsibilities as they relate to ACTA, Central Unified should update its agreement with ACTA to reflect each party's current roles and responsibilities. Further, Central Unified should periodically update this agreement to ensure that the agreement continues to reflect current roles and responsibilities.

11. To ensure that all instructors are aware of the accessibility standards for instructional materials, Cerritos should include in its next collective bargaining negotiations a requirement for instructors to periodically attend accessibility trainings.

13. To ensure that its technology master plan supports the strategic goals of the district, Cerritos should update its master plan by June 2018, and should ensure that the plan includes detailed steps to accomplish its goals.

14. To increase the transparency of its annual review process, by June 2018, Cerritos should establish procedures requiring its departments to document attendees, input received, and agreements reached during meetings to consider instructional technology equipment requests.

2. To improve fiscal accountability and to ensure that audits are performed to appropriate standards, Irvine should adopt an internal audit function by December 2017.

6. To make certain that Irvine complies with the intent of competitive bidding for professional services, beginning immediately it should not include provisions in its RFPs for potential future services that are above and beyond the desired scope of work.

9. To maintain appropriate, transparent fiscal accountability, Irvine should amend city contracting and purchasing policies by December 2016 to make certain that all of its contracts and contract amendments with a proposed cost exceeding the threshold requiring city council or other approval receive the appropriate approvals, including approval for sole-source contracts. Further, city policies should require appropriate approvals when increases in spending authority are accomplished through a purchase order or other means.

10. To provide the public with adequate information regarding the city council's spending decisions, Irvine's city council should, by December 2016, include in its policies a requirement that motions by the council to appropriate revenue to fund a specific contract should name the recipients and proposed use of the funds.

11. To foster public confidence in its processes and findings, Irvine should conduct self-initiated investigations, reviews, or audits in an open and transparent manner that ensures independence. Specifically, Irvine should not establish advisory bodies exempt from open meeting laws to oversee these investigations, reviews, or audits. Instead, any required reports from contractors conducting such investigations, reviews, or audits should go to the city council or a standing committee of the city council to be discussed in either open or closed session, as appropriate.

1. To address the structural deficit in its general fund, the city should seek long-term solutions to balance its budget so that its expenditures do not exceed its revenues. These solutions should include eliminating the reliance on one-time gains to fund ongoing expenses and identifying opportunities to further reduce spending. The city should document its approach in a long-term financial plan that should account for the following: a forecast of at least five to 10 years into the future, updates to long-term planning activities as needed to provide direction to the budget process, and an analysis of its financial status; revenue and expenditure forecasts; and plan-monitoring mechanisms, such as a scorecard of key indicators of financial health.

2. To ensure that employee compensation aligns with job statements, the city should review its salary incentives and modify the eligibility criteria so that they match the job requirements.

3. Considering that the city's retirement benefits are more generous than those of most comparable cities, and in light of its financial situation, the city should reduce its employee benefits costs by negotiating with employee bargaining groups and key management employees for the elimination of further city contributions to the PARS supplemental benefit plan or at least and increase in participant contributions to cover the full employee share of the plan's costs, recognizing that under California case law the city may not destroy vested pension rights legislatively.

4. To minimize the use of its reserves to reduce long-term liabilities, the city should annually determine whether it has sufficient funding to cash out employee leave balances. Additionally, in future labor negotiations, the city should explore the possibility of eliminating or reducing voluntary leave balance cash-outs by employees, and eliminate sick leave cash-outs altogether.

6. To reduce costs, the city should consider eliminating its current resident prescription drug benefit program and replacing it with the prescription discount card program offered by the League of California Cities that would provide discounts on prescriptions to residents at no cost to the city.

7. If the city chooses not to participate in the prescription discount card program offered by the League of California Cities, it should at least take the following step related to its current prescription drug benefit program: Align its prescription drug benefit program with its established purpose--to treat conditions proven to be caused or worsened by the city's mining activities--and limit the availability of benefits to only those medications approved for the treatment of such conditions.

8. If the city chooses not to participate in the prescription discount card program offered by the League of California Cities, it should at least reduce the cost of its current prescription drug benefit program by enacting limits--similar to those in its resident vision benefits--on the number or dollar amount of prescriptions an individual can receive each year.

9. To reduce the costs of its resident prescription drug benefit program, the city council should follow the recommendations of its consultant by approving the following: align copayments by increasing those paid by residents 50 years of age and older to the same level as those paid by residents who are 49 years or younger.

10. To reduce the costs of its resident prescription drug benefit program, the city council should follow the recommendations of its consultant by approving the following: implement coordination of benefits provisions, where applicable, to designate the city as a secondary payer to residents' primary insurance coverage.

11. To eliminate the need for police officer overtime, the city should evaluate the possibility of contracting for police services with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department or another law enforcement agency as an alternative to operating its own police department.

13. While the city is considering recommendation #11, and if it should choose not to contract for police services, it should promote public safety and equity among its police officers by implementing a rotational order for scheduled overtime to prevent some officers from working excessive shifts.

16. The Housing Authority should consider options to provide low-income housing opportunities to more people. Additionally, if the Housing Authority intends to continue providing low-income housing opportunities in the future, the city should examine the available funding mechanisms to continue providing low-income housing before it exhausts its Housing Authority Fund balance.

17. To ensure that all residents have an equal chance to participate in the Housing Authority's housing programs, the city should remove the long-term residency priorities from any future housing programs.

2. To ensure that it is aware of the degree of property owners' compliance with its resale record ordinance, Novato should implement procedures that can help it monitor the sale or exchange of properties that require resale record inspections. The city should work with applicable stakeholders, such as realtors, to aid in this effort.

5. To verify that new property owners are aware of the health and safety concerns at their properties and any corrections they need to make, Novato should develop a process to ensure that it receives homeowners' cards.

34. To ensure that the resale record fees it charges is appropriate, Novato should establish a time frame to periodically determine whether the fees are commensurate with the cost of administering the resale record program. The city should ensure that it retains any documentation used to support its analyses and any subsequent adjustments to fees.

6. To verify that new property owners are aware of the health and safety concerns at their properties and any corrections they need to make, Pasadena should develop a process to ensure that staff sign the inspection certificates and add them to the city's database.

9. To ensure that it can monitor the satisfaction individuals have with the resale record program and that it has a uniform approach for resolving complaints, Pasadena should develop a formal process for tracking the complaints it receives. In addition, Pasadena should develop a formal policy that describes how staff should evaluate complaints, and it should document its activities associated with resolving complaints, such as the resolution and the rationale for the resolution. The city should also establish a designated location in its database to record this information.

12. Pasadena should develop formal written procedures for staff to follow up on property owners' correction of violations. These procedures should identify the method in which staff document in the database the violations identified during inspections and their actions to bring the property into compliance. In addition, the procedures should identify where within the database these documents should be kept as well as identify the protocol for ensuring that repeat violations are corrected in a timely manner.

16. To ensure that property owners correct violations in a timely manner, Pasadena should develop a work plan by July 2016 to identify and address its enforcement backlog by April 2017, so that the city is up to date with its enforcement actions, such as issuing notice letters and monitoring property owners' actions to resolve violations. Pasadena's work plan should also include updating the completion status of the violations so unresolved violations can be identified and monitored for subsequent correction.

19. To ensure that property owners correct violations in a timely manner, Pasadena should follow through with its enforcement policies, such as issuing notice letters.

22. To ensure that property owners correct violations in a timely manner, Pasadena should establish a written process for staff to monitor and ensure that property owners correct violations, including accurately identifying the properties that have not obtained necessary permits or have not had required reinspections performed.

40. If Pasadena subsequently requires its resale record inspectors to have International Code Council certifications, it should ensure that those staff maintain them in good standing to perform their necessary job functions.

3. To increase students' access to and completion rates of college preparatory coursework, districts should develop and institute an on track/off track student identification model similar to San Francisco's model that will allow them to determine whether students are completing grade-level college preparatory coursework. The districts should notify parents when they identify students as falling off track and should advise the parents and students of available support and credit recovery options. Furthermore, school staff should be required to meet with and document the support they provide to these students.

13. To ensure that beneficiaries do not have restrictions limiting their ability to transfer their retirement funds, 4Cs should, by October 2018, move the funds for its primary and supplemental retirement plans out of the restrictive securities to the extent possible without incurring additional charges for beneficiaries. For any subsequent new participants, 4Cs should assign funds only to securities that do not have extensive charges associated with transferring or rolling over the funds.

14. To ensure that its retirement plan participants can make appropriate financial planning decisions, 4Cs should provide the required disclosures in its retirement benefit statements, summary plan description, and annual report, and it should maintain documentation that it did so.

9. Alameda County probation department should update its existing procedures to ensure that its staff are accurately recording family reunification service components within the statewide case management system.

11. To identify their population of dually involved youth, Alameda County's CWS and probation agencies should designate the data system they will use for tracking the dates and results of joint assessment hearings.

17. To identify their population of dually involved youth, Alameda County's CWS and probation agencies should provide guidance or training to staff on recording joint assessment hearing information consistently within the designated system.

7. To ensure that grant recipients comply with state law concerning interest earned on mitigation grant funds, by June 2014, the Butte County benefit committee should establish policies and procedures to verify that grant recipients have placed grant awards in interest-bearing accounts, and that the interest is spent only on activities that mitigate the effect of tribal gaming on local jurisdictions.

1. If the Legislature appropriates funding from the distribution fund for mitigation grants in the future, to comply with state law, the benefit committee for Fresno County should ensure that it obtains sufficient documentation from grant applicants to demonstrate that the requested funding represents the correct proportionate share of the costs attributable to casino impacts.

2. If the Legislature appropriates funding from the distribution fund for mitigation grants in future years, Fresno County's benefit committee should revise its procedures to include specific steps to verify that grantees will place grant funds into interest-bearing accounts when awarding any mitigation grants. These steps should include requiring grantees to report the interest accrued in their quarterly reports and to substantiate those reports with bank statements or other reports of interest earned, and following up with the grantee when the grantee reports no earned interest for the period.

7. To ensure that they consistently demonstrate that candidates are hired for permanent civil service positions based on valid and job-related criteria, regardless of their sex, each county should develop policies requiring hiring managers to document the reasons why they chose the selected candidate over others from the certified eligibility list.

1. To determine whether its trauma system is appropriately designed and serving the needs of residents in underserved areas and the needs of the most at-risk populations, the board should use Measure B funds to engage the College of Surgeons by July 2014 to perform a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system and then make the results available to the public.To the extent the assessment identifies weaknesses in the trauma system, the board should develop strategies to address those weaknesses where feasible. Specifically, the board should ask the College of Surgeons to do the following: assist the board in better defining and identifying underserved areas in Los Angeles.

2. To determine whether its trauma system is appropriately designed and serving the needs of residents in underserved areas and the needs of the most at-risk populations, the board should use Measure B funds to engage the College of Surgeons by July 2014 to perform a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system and then make the results available to the public. To the extent the assessment identifies weaknesses in the trauma system, the board should develop strategies to address those weaknesses where feasible. Specifically, the board should ask the College of Surgeons to do the following: review Measure B allocations to ensure that they are addressing the most pressing needs of at-risk populations in Los Angeles.

3. To determine whether its trauma system is appropriately designed and serving the needs of residents in underserved areas and the needs of the most at-risk populations, the board should use Measure B funds to engage the College of Surgeons by July 2014 to perform a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system and then make the results available to the public. To the extent the assessment identifies weaknesses in the trauma system, the board should develop strategies to address those weaknesses where feasible. Specifically, the board should ask the College of Surgeons to do the following: assess the adequacy of helicopter services it provides in underserved areas.

4. To determine whether its trauma system is appropriately designed and serving the needs of residents in underserved areas and the needs of the most at-risk populations, the board should use Measure B funds to engage the College of Surgeons by July 2014 to perform a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system and then make the results available to the public. To the extent the assessment identifies weaknesses in the trauma system, the board should develop strategies to address those weaknesses where feasible. Specifically, the board should ask the College of Surgeons to do the following: analyze how EMS might better use the data it collects to evaluate, improve, and report continuously on its trauma system.

5. To ensure that it allocates Measure B funds to address the most significant needs of residents within its trauma system, the board should reinstate a Measure B oversight committee, with participation from departments with trauma, EMS, and bioterrorism preparedness expertise, as well as representatives of the public. The oversight committee should review trauma system and other county needs annually and advise the board on Measure B expenditures. As part of its responsibilities, the oversight committee should reevaluate the Measure B allocation approach, taking into consideration the results of Los Angeles's comprehensive assessment and the effects of the Act, and issue a report on its findings no later than December 2015.

1. By April 2017, the county should reach agreement with the association on the date by which the association must pay the county for the rent in arrears related to the hotel.

2. By April 2017, the county should reach agreement with the association on how much rent the association owes the county from the hotel's operations since 1992.

3. As soon as possible, the county should collect from the association all amounts presently owed under the lease as a result of the revenue generated by the conference center.

4. To ensure that it recognizes and addresses in a timely manner areas of potential concern related to the association's rent, the county should create and adhere to a policy of reviewing the association's rent calculations at least every three years.

5. To protect its interests and maximize its future revenue, the county should strongly consider ensuring that any potential amendment to the lease includes a revised rent calculation formula that factors in revenue from all of the association's activities, including its hotel and conference center, as well as revenue from its subsidiaries' activities at the Fairplex. This revised rent calculation formula should require the association either to pay the county an agreed-upon fixed amount, adjusted periodically for inflation, or to pay the county both a fixed amount every year and a percentage of the total gross revenue that the association earns at the Fairplex.

6. To protect its interests and maximize its future revenue, the county should strongly consider ensuring that any potential amendment to the lease includes terms that define the circumstances or dates that require a renegotiation of the lease and the rent calculation formula.

7. To protect its interests and maximize its future revenue, the county should strongly consider ensuring that any potential amendment to the lease includes an agreement on the types of entities whose gross revenues the association must include in rent calculations. This agreement should cover any new businesses the association creates that operate at the Fairplex.

8. To protect its interests and maximize its future revenue, the county should strongly consider ensuring that any potential amendment to the lease includes terms that require the association to provide the county with any subleases it wishes to enter, even those subleases that do not exceed 10 years. The terms should also require the association to provide the county with approval over other agreements that could affect the rent calculation, including the association's hotel management agreement and its amendments.

9. To protect its interests and maximize its future revenue, the county should strongly consider ensuring that any potential amendment to the lease includes terms that require the association to provide the county with advance notice of any refinancing of the association's debt and what impact, if any, such transactions would have on the amount or timing of rent payments to the county.

10. If San Diego County's benefit committee believes that its processes for distributing grant funds are vital to its effective management of distribution fund grants, it should seek legislative authority to change its process. Otherwise, San Diego County's benefit committee should refrain from placing limits on the time available for grant recipients to spend the grant funds.

4. If the Legislature appropriates funding from the distribution fund for mitigation grants in the future, to comply with state law, the benefit committee for San Diego County should ensure that it obtains sufficient documentation from grant applicants to demonstrate that the requested funding represents the correct proportionate share of the costs attributable to casino impacts.

16. To identify their population of dually involved youth, Santa Clara County's CWS and probation agencies should designate the data system they will use for tracking the dates and results of joint assessment hearings.

22. To identify their population of dually involved youth, Santa Clara County's CWS and probation agencies should provide guidance or training to staff on recording joint assessment hearing information consistently within the designated system.

17. To better understand the effectiveness of the mental health services in its special education program, East Side should use the six performance indicators we identified to perform analysis annually on the subset of students receiving mental health services.

15. To ensure that it is fulfilling requests for alternate media services from students with disabilities in a timely manner, by June 2018, De Anza should establish procedures for monitoring its timeliness in responding to such requests so that it can periodically review its performance in completing the requests. Specifically, it should record and track sufficient information to be able to review how long it takes to complete requests. Additionally, De Anza should calculate the number of days it takes to complete requests, and periodically evaluate its performance against its time-frame goals. Further, to evaluate its performance, De Anza should establish a time-frame goal for completing alternate media requests.

16. To ensure that it promptly addresses any complaints it receives related to web accessibility and alternate media requests, De Anza should follow its new procedures for tracking and reviewing complaints related to accessibility.

17. To ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to instructional materials, by June 2018, De Anza should develop procedures to monitor and periodically review the accessibility of instructional materials. For example, De Anza could develop an accessibility checklist for instructors to complete when developing or selecting instructional materials, from which the college could periodically review a sample of course content to ensure that instructors completed the checklist and that the instructional materials comply with accessibility standards.

18. To ensure that its website complies with accessibility standards, by June 2018, De Anza should develop procedures to monitor website accessibility and incorporate steps to prevent instructors from publishing inaccessible content on the college's website. These procedures should include a tracking mechanism to demonstrate how many accessibility errors the college identifies and how long it takes to fix those errors.

19. To ensure that all instructors are aware of the accessibility standards for instructional materials, De Anza should include in its next collective bargaining negotiations a requirement for instructors to periodically attend accessibility trainings.

21. To increase the transparency of its annual review process, by June 2018, De Anza should establish procedures requiring its departments to document attendees, input received, and agreements reached during meetings to consider instructional technology equipment requests.

1. To assist low-income water customers, Hesperia should work with its governing body to consider the feasibility of using revenues from sources other than water rates to implement a rate assistance program.

4. To better communicate with parents and future IEP teams about reasons for any changes to student services, including changes to mental health services and student placements, Long Beach should develop a process to ensure that IEP teams record these reasons in student IEP documents.

10. To ensure that it complies with federal and state requirements, Long Beach should develop a process to ensure that IEP teams record, in student IEP documents, the rationale for residential treatment and any potential harmful effects of such placement.

14. To better understand the effectiveness of the mental health services in its special education program, Long Beach should use the six performance indicators we identified to perform analysis annually on the subset of students receiving mental health services.

1. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should direct Montebello to submit a corrective action plan to address the issues identified in this report including balancing its budget, amending and adhering to its hiring procedures, and establishing adequate safeguards to ensure that policies related to bond proceeds, conflicts of interest, and the approval of expenditures are implemented and followed.

2. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should assist Montebello in developing a plan to justify its workforce size and cost in terms of its current and projected enrollment, including evaluating the necessity of current staff levels and personnel costs.

3. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should evaluate the necessity of executive positions and adjust executives' salaries based on an analysis of the number and cost of executives in comparable districts.

4. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should ensure that Montebello implements all of the recommendations detailed in the report.

1. To ensure that its CCW licensing decisions align with its CCW policy, Los Angeles should only issue licenses to applicants after collecting documentation of specific, personal threats against the applicants so as to satisfy its definition of good cause. If Los Angeles believes that its public licensing policy does not include all acceptable good causes for a CCW license, then by March 2018 it should revise that policy and publish the new policy on its website. It should then immediately begin processing applications according to that revised policy.

2. To ensure that it only issues licenses to individuals after receiving evidence of residency, firearms training, and good moral character that aligns with its policy, Los Angeles should only issue licenses after verifying that it has received this evidence. To avoid overlooking required evidence, Los Angeles should create procedures by March 2018 for its staff to follow to ensure that each CCW file contains the evidence its policy requires before issuing the license.

10. To ensure that it is only charging fees that state law allows, Los Angeles should immediately cease charging applicants fees in addition to its license processing fee. Los Angeles should reimburse applicants who paid the unallowable fees. Further, if Los Angeles believes its license fee does not recover its entire cost of processing an initial application, it should complete a cost study and, if appropriate, revise its fee according to the results of that study and the maximum allowed fees under state law.

1. To ensure that the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners (board) can more effectively exercise oversight for the department's significant information technology projects, the board should establish a standing committee comprised of board members to oversee and critically evaluate the status of the department's various information technology projects. Given the limited tenure of board members and the potential for multiyear and high-cost information technology projects, the board president should consider appointing as many committee members as practicable in order to promote continuity of oversight.

2. To ensure that the board can more effectively exercise oversight for the department's significant information technology projects, the board should develop reporting standards for the department's management to follow when discussing the status of information technology projects with the standing committee or the board. Such reporting standards should, at a minimum, specify the frequency with which the department's management makes such reports and require the following disclosures about each information technology project:
o The amount of project growth, in terms of both budget and scope of work, from initial project estimates through current projections.
o The results from system testing and a listing of the critical defects that exist and must be fixed prior to system use.
o The concerns the quality assurance contractor has raised and how the department is addressing them.

3. To ensure that the board can more effectively exercise oversight for the department's significant information technology projects, the board should develop a process for the board to designate certain information technology projects as having a potentially significant effect on business operations or customer relations, and require that department managers first obtain the board's approval before launching such critical new systems.

12. To expand the number of service providers through targeted technical assistance, the Authority should evaluate the effectiveness of the selected system within 12 months after implementation.

8. To ensure that they accurately identify and report hate crimes, SFSU Police and LA Police should update their hate crime policies and procedures, and the Orange County Sheriff and Stanislaus County Sheriff should implement supplemental hate crime reports and require officers to use them.

13. To ensure accurate and complete reporting, LA Police and SFSU Police should provide sufficient guidance and oversight to their officers and staff so that they report all hate crimes to DOJ.

23. Until the Los Angeles Police Department receives further direction from the board, the committee, or Justice, it should address the specific deficiencies we found by reviewing the gangs it has entered into CalGang to ensure the gangs meet reasonable suspicion requirements. It should also begin reviewing the gang members it has entered into CalGang to ensure the existence of proper support for each criterion. It should purge from CalGang any records for gangs or gang members that do not meet the criteria for entry. Individuals who are independent from the ongoing administration and use of CalGang should lead this review. The agency should complete the gang and gang member reviews in phases, with the final phase for gangs to be completed by June 30, 2018, and the final phase for gang members to be completed by June 30, 2019.

31. To ensure that state adult education funds are used in the most efficient and effective manner, the consortium should, within one year, complete an assessment of Montebello's ability to meet the requirements of its adult education plan to determine whether its use of state funds has been effective. If Montebello is found to be consistently ineffective, the consortium should immediately recalculate the adult program's fund allocation for the future.

32. To ensure that state adult education funds are used in the most efficient and effective manner, the consortium should, within one year, develop policies and procedures to ensure the proper collection and reporting of enrollment, attendance, and expenditure data by consortium members. Periodically review enrollment, attendance, and expenditure data to ensure their accuracy.

18. Los Angeles should correct its pollutant control plan where it miscalculated two pollutant limits.

24. To ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to instructional materials, by June 2018, American River should develop procedures to monitor and periodically review the accessibility of instructional materials. For example, American River could develop an accessibility checklist for instructors to complete when developing or selecting instructional materials, from which the college could periodically review a sample of course content to ensure that instructors completed the checklist and that the instructional materials comply with accessibility standards.

25. To ensure that its website complies with accessibility standards, by June 2018, American River should develop procedures to monitor website accessibility and incorporate steps to prevent instructors from publishing inaccessible content on the college's website. These procedures should include a tracking mechanism to demonstrate how many accessibility errors the college identifies and how long it takes to fix those errors.

26. To ensure that all instructors are aware of the accessibility standards for instructional materials, American River should include in its next collective bargaining negotiations a requirement for instructors to periodically attend accessibility trainings.

28. To ensure that it fully implements its technology master plan, by June 2018, American River should establish an implementation plan with detailed steps for achieving the goals in its technology master plan that it has not yet accomplished. Further, it should develop an implementation plan in conjunction with the development of its future technology master plan.

29. To increase the transparency of its annual review processes, by June 2018, American River should establish procedures requiring its departments to document attendees, input received, and agreements reached during meetings to consider instructional technology equipment requests.

5. To ensure that future projects have adequate risk management, MTC should formalize a scalable risk management policy by June 2019 so that the projects it directs benefit from sufficient and ongoing risk management.

5. To improve its current financial condition and ensure future viability, Montebello should, within 60 days, revise its fiscal stabilization plan and make the necessary cuts to fund its ongoing commitments.

6. To improve its current financial condition and ensure future viability, Montebello should create a robust budgeting process within 90 days using best practices of the Government Finance Officers Association to ensure Montebello's ability to meet its priorities while maintaining the required level of reserves that buffers the district from drastic cuts in times of economic instability.

7. To improve its current financial condition and ensure future viability, Montebello should, within 90 days, implement an effective budget monitoring process with regular budget-to-actual comparisons. This process should include safeguards against spending in excess of budgeted expenditures and require advance board approval of such spending before it occurs. For example, Montebello should require that the budget manager perform monthly reviews of budget-to-actual figures and provide detailed explanations to the board for any variances.

8. To ensure that Montebello hires the most qualified executive and management staff, Montebello should immediately adhere to its policies for hiring classified employees, including screening candidates to ensure that they meet the minimum qualifications. Montebello should also hold provisional employees to the same standards for minimum
qualifications as its policy requires.

9. To ensure that Montebello hires qualified classified employees, the personnel commission should, within 90 days, revise its policies to require the classified director to provide it with the education and work experience of any candidates on eligibility lists for high-ranking positions. It should also require the director of the personnel commission—the classified director—to provide it with a list of all provisional appointments, including information on how those employees meet the minimum qualifications.

10. To ensure that it does not violate state law, Montebello should immediately adhere to its policies and ensure that provisional employees do not work more than the legal maximum number of days of service.

12. In order to rebuild trust with its community, Montebello should adhere to its policies for hiring certificated personnel and fill any vacant positions for executives through a competitive hiring process, including advertising the positions, screening to ensure that minimum qualifications are met, and interviewing to ensure that it hires and retains the most qualified and talented leaders.

13. To ensure that Montebello creates employee positions only when necessary, it should establish a policy within 30 days that requires a justification for why the district is creating a position. Additionally, in order to maintain transparency when creating new positions, Montebello should immediately begin to document its justifications.

14. To ensure that Montebello hires qualified certificated and classified employees, within 90 days the board should revise its policies to require the superintendent or his or her designee to provide information to the board about recruitments for high-ranking employees. The board should consider, at a minimum, the following information when approving appointments:
- The number of initial applicants.
- The number of candidates who passed the screening and interviewing steps.
- The education and work experience of the final candidate recommended by the superintendent or designee.

15. To ensure that Montebello is making hiring decisions free of bias or favoritism, within 90 days it should strengthen its hiring policies related to nepotism and conflicts of interest for classified and certificated personnel to include the following: establishing restrictions on immediate family members being involved in the screening and interviewing processes and definitions of what types of personal relationships fall under the nepotism policy, which work relationships the nepotism policy applies to, and what factors to consider when evaluating the potential impact of a personal relationship.

19. To ensure that bond funds are spent appropriately, the district should immediately ensure that its contracted auditor delivers a timely bond audit and that Montebello addresses the auditor's concerns and recommendations.

23. To ensure that Montebello spends its funds for allowable and reasonable purposes, it should require employees whose salaries are funded by voter-approved bond proceeds to fill out detailed timesheets to demonstrate that they work on bond-related activities. Bond proceeds should only be used to pay the portion of the salary relating to bond-funded activities that is supported by the timesheet.

24. To ensure that Montebello spends its funds for allowable and reasonable purposes, it should implement an inventory tracking system that allows it to know where its equipment is located. Montebello should also periodically review its inventory listing to ensure that equipment is being properly used.

26. To ensure that Montebello spends its funds for allowable and reasonable purposes, it should require all employees to obtain approval for overtime before performing any overtime work and to submit an explanation of tasks they completed during their overtime work when they submit their overtime timesheet for payment.

29. To ensure that state adult education expenditures are reasonable and justified, the board should, within one year, require the adult program to annually report to the consortium
and to the board on the accurate number of students in each class, number of hours taught, and cost of the class per student.

44. To better ensure effective oversight of its charter schools' finances, New Jerusalem should place a district representative as a nonvoting member on each charter school's governing board.

32. To ensure that its campuses provide the necessary resources and information to students about campus safety, Peralta should by December 2018, develop all required policies related to campus safety in compliance with the Education Code.

13. To assist low-income water customers, Quartz Hill Water District should work with its governing body to consider the feasibility of using revenues from sources other than water rates to implement rate assistance programs for low-income water customers.

3. To ensure that staff are gathering consistent evidence from applicants to demonstrate residency, good moral character, and firearms training and are including which requirement applicants did not meet in its denial letters, by March 2018 Sacramento should create formal CCW processing procedures and train its staff to follow these procedures. These procedures should require staff to gather and evaluate the information the department believes is required to demonstrate that each of the criteria for a CCW license has been met, and they should also require staff to include which requirement applicants did not meet in its denial letters.

4. To ensure that staff are following its newly established procedures and to identify any need for additional guidance, by March 2018 Sacramento should establish a review process wherein it regularly reviews a selection of license files and denied applications to determine whether its staff are collecting sufficient and consistent documentation in accordance with its policies and are appropriately including which requirement applicants did not meet in its denial letters.

7. To ensure that it provides all required information to Justice, Sacramento should immediately inform Justice when it revokes a CCW license, including when it receives a prohibition notice from Justice.

11. To ensure that it is maximizing allowable revenue from the CCW program and reducing its program deficits, Sacramento should perform a cost study of its initial application processing and, on completion of the study, immediately increase its CCW license fees and begin charging the maximum amounts allowable under state law.

1. To better ensure and demonstrate that it efficiently meets public health needs of at-risk county residents, and that it employs the appropriate number of PHNs in the right locations to address those needs, the Health Agency should measure and assess PHN efficiency. Specifically, the Health Agency should direct the chief nursing officer to begin developing and implementing PHN efficiency measures by January 1, 2019. These measures could address such factors as caseload, case complexity, and overtime.

5. To ensure that its staff appropriately renew CCW licenses, by March 2018 San Diego should establish a routine supervisory review of a selection of renewed licenses.

6. To ensure that it consistently obtains sufficient evidence to demonstrate that an applicant satisfies its requirements for a license, by March 2018 San Diego should develop guidance and train its staff on what good cause documentation staff should request from applicants. Further, it should train its staff regarding the expected documents for residency and training.

8. To ensure that it follows state law's requirements for revoking licenses, San Diego should immediately revoke CCW licenses and should then inform Justice that it has revoked licenses whenever license holders become prohibited persons. Additionally, San Diego should notify Justice when it suspends a license or a license is surrendered.

12. To ensure that it maximizes allowable revenue from its CCW program, San Diego should immediately pursue increasing its initial, renewal, and amendment fees to the maximum amounts allowable under state law.

10. To help ensure that they consistently comply with the Buy American requirement, San Francisco should establish written policies and procedures related to the Buy American requirement by October 1, 2017. At a minimum, those policies and procedures should include the following:
- An explanation of how it will ensure that it consistently includes language related to the Buy American requirement in its bid solicitation documents and contracts.
- A minimum expectation for how regularly it will verify that food items its vendors provide are domestic commodities or products.
- A requirement that its staff identify the need to purchase foreign-sourced items as early as possible in the food purchasing process and that they begin documenting the justification for such exceptions to the Buy American requirement at that time.
- Guidance for how it will maintain documentation showing that its purchases of foreign-sourced food items meet one of the two allowable exceptions.

7. To strengthen its library programs and help the State assess the condition of school libraries statewide, San Juan Unified should ensure that teacher librarians are involved in the selection of library materials at each school.

9. To strengthen its library programs and help the State assess the condition of school libraries statewide, San Juan Unified should use the model standards to assess the needs of its school library programs and address any identified needs during its LCAP process.

6. To ensure accuracy and consistency in the creation, review, and distribution of election-related materials, Santa Clara should review and document in detail all policies and procedures by October 2018, prioritizing its documentation for the divisions that are responsible for the most frequent and egregious election-related errors. Specifically, Santa Clara should review and formalize Mapping policies and procedures by January 2018, to allow time for implementation before the June primary election process. By October 2018, Santa Clara should review and formalize policies and procedures for the remaining divisions--including Ballot Layout, Candidate Services, and Vote by Mail--to provide adequate time for implementation before the November general election process.

7. To reduce the risk of staff errors, inconsistencies in procedures, and the loss of institutional knowledge in the creation, review, and distribution of election-related materials, Santa Clara should develop and implement training for its staff that includes instructions on its comprehensive policies and procedures. The development of this training should take place concurrently with Santa Clara's detailed documentation of its policies and procedures, and Santa Clara should require relevant staff to attend this training before each major election.

11. To ensure that they accurately identify and report hate crimes, SFSU Police and LA Police should update their hate crime policies and procedures, and the Orange County Sheriff and Stanislaus County Sheriff should implement supplemental hate crime reports and require officers to use them.

11. To help ensure that they consistently comply with the Buy American requirement, Stockton should establish written policies and procedures related to the Buy American requirement by October 1, 2017. At a minimum, those policies and procedures should include the following:
- An explanation of how it will ensure that it consistently includes language related to the Buy American requirement in its bid solicitation documents and contracts.
- A minimum expectation for how regularly it will verify that food items its vendors provide are domestic commodities or products.
- A requirement that its staff identify the need to purchase foreign-sourced items as early as possible in the food purchasing process and that they begin documenting the justification for such exceptions to the Buy American requirement at that time.
- Guidance for how it will maintain documentation showing that its purchases of foreign-sourced food items meet one of the two allowable exceptions.

13. To ensure that it properly authorizes payments and purchases only allowable items, the San Mateo court should process payments in accordance with the requirements and recommended practices of the Judicial Council and the State. Specifically, the San Mateo court should amend its bottled water service contract to ensure that water is purchased for use by jurors and court room staff only.

1. To ensure that the district can demonstrate that its decisions for selecting contractors are justified and are in the best interest of the district's residents, by April 2019 the district should establish formal procedures designed to ensure that it follows a rigorous and appropriate evaluation and contract awarding process.

2. To ensure that the district pays only reasonable and appropriate contract administrative costs, before the district signs any future management contract, it should prepare estimates of the costs for all proposed contract terms related to compensation.

6. To ensure that the district budgets for all costs necessary to reopen, it should immediately include in its budget the costs to pay pre-petition debt for vendors with whom it must reestablish relationships before it can resume operations.

8. To ensure that it uses bond proceeds for allowable purposes and improves its consistency and accountability in processing payments from bond proceeds, by April 2019 the district should formalize and document policies and procedures for verifying that it uses bond proceeds for allowable purposes and for approving expenditures paid from general obligation bond proceeds.

2. To assist low-income water customers, Victorville should work with its governing body to consider the feasibility of using revenues from sources other than water rates to implement a rate assistance program.

6. To demonstrate to water customers how they are working to keep rates reasonable, the four water utilities should document their cost-saving efforts and quantify, to the extent possible, any specific cost savings achieved from their respective efforts.

7. To ensure that it does not use revenues from ratepayers for inappropriate purposes, by October 2015, Victorville should revise its policies to prohibit transfers or loans of water fee revenue for nonwater district purposes. Victorville should also revise its investment policy that specifies the circumstances under which it can invest water revenues—setting prudent limits on its investment in assets that the Victorville city council manages.

8. To address the excess interest expense resulting from loans to the city of Victorville and the building of the wastewater plant, Victorville should seek reimbursement from the city for its unrecovered costs. Victorville should work with the city to prepare and submit to the water district board and the Victorville city council by October 2015 a formal repayment plan including specific dates and payments to be made to ensure that the water district and its ratepayers are made whole. When the water district board approves such a plan, it should take steps to ensure compliance with the repayment plan.