In a strongly-worded response, Inspector General Laura Chick rebuked efforts by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors to attempt to soften the blow of the criticism of the Probation Department for their failure to adhere to the terms of a grant.
Ms. Chick wrote on December 7 to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors Chair Helen Thomson, “It is important to remember that Yolo County received this grant for specific purposes. The innovations and risk-taking you mention in your letter were an inherent part of the grant. Any county seeking this funding was, in fact, being asked to change and improve the way it was dealing with perpetrators and victims of sexual crimes.”
Last week the Vanguard reported that the Yolo County Probation Department had been cited for the misuse and failure to properly utilize money it received from a California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA) grant.
Inspector General Laura Chick faulted the Yolo County Probation Department, arguing that the grant was awarded in order to create a small specialized unit to manage those probationers convicted of sexual assault.
She writes, “One of the key elements of the program was to contact victims to refer them to services and especially to notify them when their perpetrators were released from prison. My review finds that with only four months left in the grant period, not even a third of the promised contacts with victims were made.”
Following the report, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors drafted a response letter, dated December 3, 2010.
Writing for the board, Helen Thomson writes, “The purpose of our letter is to recognize and highlight the success of Yolo County’s Probation Specialized Units Recovery Act Program. We believe that the Yolo County Probation Department should be commended for trying something new, achieving significant success, and now learning from the program so that the Department can develop long-term solutions.”
She added, “The Probation Specialized Units Recovery Act Program was designed as a pilot project to test a new and innovative approach for enhancing public safety. In so doing, this program met or exceeded four of the five grant objectives.”
The five objectives were:
1. Maintain two full -time jobs for probation officers.
2. Supervise 115 sexual offenders.
3. Make more than 4400 contacts with sexual offenders on probation.
4. Maintain caseloads of less than 40 sexual offenders on the three caseloads.
5. Make 300 contacts with victims of the perpetrators we have on probation.
Helen Thomson writes, “The Probation Department met objectives 1, 2, and 4 and exceeded objective 3 by 565 contacts. As a result of this grant, Yolo County Probation Officers supervised sexual offenders three times more closely than would have been possible otherwise.”
She added, “The Probation Department made [only] 115 of the proposed 300 contacts in objective 5, as pointed out by your review, because victims either did not want the Department to contact them or the Department could not find the victims because of outdated contact information. These obstacles were not anticipated when the Department established the objective and sought funding.”
However, as Ms. Chick pointed out, “My report clearly stated that Yolo County achieved all of its goals except that one. The entire program was not a failure, but Yolo County failed to deliver these increased services to victims.”
Yolo County’s chief probation officer Marjorie Rist acknowledged, in her October 12 response letter, problems with attempting to connect victims of crime with resources.
“Yolo County Probation Department does not dispute that we will not make the contacts as anticipated in the grant application,” Ms. Rist responded. “What the department found was that making contacts with victims proved far more difficult than anticipated.”
According to the Inspector General, the Yolo County Probation Department was to receive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds of around $259,000 for a period from October 1, 2009 to October 31, 2010. Of that money, $188,550, or roughly 70%, has been spent.
The Inspector General found, “An objective of the Probation Specialized Units Recovery Act Program is contact with victims to inform them about probationer’s status, terms and conditions of probation, the role of the probation officer, examples of probation violations, and to refer victims to appropriate services. The Department included, as a grant objective, the service goal of 300 contacts with victims by the end of the grant term, October 31, 2010. The Department will not meet this objective, having recorded only 81 contacts with victims as of June 30, 2010.
“Further, the Department did not maintain a victim contact log which records required information about victim contacts. As a result, the IG could not determine if the Department initiated contact with victims within 14 days of the probationer’s release or assignment to the unit, as specified in the Department’s grant proposal.”
“Failure to meet program objectives may result in disallowed cost, withholding of future grant funds or denial of subsequent grant awards,” the report continues.
At this point, the Inspector General recommends that the Probation Department work with CalEMA to determine the corrective action for the problems.
Inspector General Chick added toward the end of her response letter, “I am very regretful Yolo County never mentioned, at any time during the review process, the valuable lessons learned referenced in your letter. A major part of my focus as Inspector General is to publicly share lessons learned so mistakes can be avoided and not repeated. If you will share those lessons I would be happy to post them on my web-site so that others might benefit.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I find this exchange very interesting. The IG concedes Yolo County completely met 4 of the 5 goals. It chastizes the county for not fully meeting only one goal. Now remember, this is a pilot project, so I would assume there is the possibility that not all goals will/can be met for whatever reason bc this is a trial run. The IG seems to be conceding this point in her response letter. I get the feeling that the IG was just upset at the “tone” of Yolo County’s response to the IG’s initial letter.
Sounds more like a cat fight to me than a professional exchange. The IG bean counter caught the county out in not meeting every single goal (which is understandable in pilot projects) in a “gotcha moment”; the county took offense bc they felt they had made good faith efforts to comply with every goal – so got snippy and defensive in their answer; and the IG got on her high horse bc the county was not suitably chastened and conciliatory. What a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense – a tempest in a teapot begun by an overzealous IG (IMHO).
ERM The one goal that was not met was off by such a huge amount it doesn’t seem like the probation department even tried to meet it. They also did’t keep a contact log so how does anyone know if they actually were contacting victims throughout the reporting period or just cramming them in at the end of the reporting period. This was part of the terms of the grant. You seem to make excuses at every level for everyone employed by the courts, police, sheriffs, prisons, etc.
Elaine: I disagree with you on this one.
When one writes a grant, the grantee sets up what he/she will achieve with the grant money. Then the grant is awarded based on these promised achievements. The grant becomes something like a contract. You get the money for doing a, b, c…..
If you are unable to do something outlined in the grant, you have to notify the grant monitor and see if an adjustment can be made. Yolo Probation Department did not let the grant monitor know there were issues with fulfilling their part of the bargain. Yet, they still wanted the money.
This is why the IG has made this report. If the grant stated that this was a pilot program, and if the granting organization was o.k. if you didn’t get your desired outcomes, then this wouldn’t be a problem. This seems not to be the case in this grant.
The probation department got $259,000 to achieve certain goals, and they are entitled to keep the funds that were tied to those goals they achieved. It’s the funds tied to the goal that they didn’t achieve that is the issue here.
It is like if you hired a person to do a job for a price, and that person didn’t quite finish the job. You wouldn’t be expected to pay for the part that he/she failed to complete.
“You seem to make excuses at every level for everyone employed by the courts, police, sheriffs, prisons, etc.”
Just as many of “you” seem to go out of their way to try and demonize everyone employed by the courts, police, sheriffs, prisons, etc.
FAI: “If you are unable to do something outlined in the grant, you have to notify the grant monitor and see if an adjustment can be made. Yolo Probation Department did not let the grant monitor know there were issues with fulfilling their part of the bargain. Yet, they still wanted the money.”
I think my main complaint is how the IG approached this issue. As I understand it, the initial letter was along the lines of “you misused funds, now explain”. This is an accusation, which will tend to elicit a defensive response. Why not initally make inquiry, such as “it seems as if you have not met your goals, please explain why not”.
I don’t necessarily agree that the Yolo Probation Dept. “did not let the grant monitor know there were issues w fulfilling their part of the bargain”. They may have assumed when they turned in their report, it would be clear (and they were telling the grant funder) that they were unable to fulfull all the goals. They very well may have expected to be asked for an explanation when applying for the same amount of grant funding – but would not necessarily figure on being accused of malfeasance.
FAI: “This is why the IG has made this report. If the grant stated that this was a pilot program, and if the granting organization was o.k. if you didn’t get your desired outcomes, then this wouldn’t be a problem. This seems not to be the case in this grant.”
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that not all goals may be met in a pilot program. That is why it is a “pilot” program. And since the IG is not taking away funding, it becomes pretty clear she does not think there was purposeful malfeasance here. If she did, then why continue the funding? She undercuts her own claim here.
FAI: “The probation department got $259,000 to achieve certain goals, and they are entitled to keep the funds that were tied to those goals they achieved. It’s the funds tied to the goal that they didn’t achieve that is the issue here.”
I think this is a fair point. But if the IG were truly justified in her complaint of malfeasance, then why continue the grant funding at all?
The IG should have asked for an explanation before accusing malfeasance; the county should have tempered their answer and couched it in more careful language so as not to raise the ire of an overly zealous bean counter.
Are you advocating the Yolo Probation Dept. get no more grant funding? 4/5 grant funding? All grant funding, w the understanding they will correct any deficiencies? If the latter, then I would say this was a tempest in a teapot…
Themis: “ERM The one goal that was not met was off by such a huge amount it doesn’t seem like the probation department even tried to meet it. They also did’t keep a contact log so how does anyone know if they actually were contacting victims throughout the reporting period or just cramming them in at the end of the reporting period. This was part of the terms of the grant. You seem to make excuses at every level for everyone employed by the courts, police, sheriffs, prisons, etc.”
4/5 of the goals were met on a test program (that is what a “pilot project” is), and a portion of the other goal was met. Are you going to accuse an agency of malfeasance bc they did not achieve 100% efficiency? I wish all gov’t agencies were this (approx 90%) efficient! Twenty lashes with a wet noodle to the Yolo Probation Dept. for being 10% inefficient on a test program!
“I think my main complaint is how the IG approached this issue. As I understand it, the initial letter was along the lines of “you misused funds, now explain”. This is an accusation, which will tend to elicit a defensive response. Why not initally make inquiry, such as “it seems as if you have not met your goals, please explain why not”.”
I think you missed part of the exchange. The IG audited the grant. They wrote a letter. The Probation Department responded. And based on that, they issued their final judgment. So there was an inquiry and Ms. Rist essentially admitted that they had not done the last item which apparnetly is the most important part of the program.
Both letters were intemperate in tone and content and the 7 December letter by the IG was condescending as well. There’s a big serving in the blame bowl, and each side can take generous portions.
Ultimately, the County has to be faulted on some crucial points. Saying we got 4 out of 5 implies that partial compliance is OK. When people who give out money hear that, they are miffed. Call it juvenile and silly, and it might be so. But one thing for sure, cash-strapped counties must never alienate relations with entities who give out money.
Another way of saying it, whenever any grant agency says, “jump,” to a grant recipient the only acceptable response is, “How high?”
I’d hate to be the next person from Yolo County assigned to ask for federal grant money.
To Phil Coleman: You and I agree both parties were needlessly and highly unprofessional here. I would quibble w your characterization of complaince w 4 out of 5 goals. It was compliance with 4 1/2 out of 5 goals, with respect to a PILOT PROGRAM (meaning there should be some forgiveness/leniency for imperfections since it is a test run). Whether the grant money should have been given in the first place is a whole other question, in these tough economic times. Frankly, one would never know we were in the middle of an economic recession based on the way gov’t at all levels continues to spend taxpayers’ money. Personally, I’m against these sorts of grants bc they are not well tracked for accountability. Remember the IG has not gotten around to assessing these programs for 10 or more years if my memory serves me correctly. I wouldn’t call the IG’s agency “efficient” by any stretch of the imagination!
dmg: “I think you missed part of the exchange. The IG audited the grant. They wrote a letter. The Probation Department responded. And based on that, they issued their final judgment. So there was an inquiry and Ms. Rist essentially admitted that they had not done the last item which apparnetly is the most important part of the program.”
What was the tone of the initial letter from the IG, if you know?
Elaine: I looked at the IG’s report and no where do I see that this is called a pilot program. We would have to actually see the grant application to know if this were true or not. I also can’t see the Inspector General getting upset if both parties agreed that this was a pilot program and compliance with all aspects wasn’t required.
http://www.inspectorgeneral.ca.gov/res/docs/pdf/Final Report Yolo County Probation Department.pdf
You asked me “Are you advocating the Yolo Probation Dept. get no more grant funding? 4/5 grant funding? All grant funding, with the understanding they will correct any deficiencies?
I think that both parties should abide by the original agreement. If one party doesn’t fulfill their part of the bargain, as in this case, than an adjustment needs to be made–a percentage is taken back for whatever didn’t get done.
I am sure the County Supervisors would insist on not paying for an entire job that was not completed by one of their contractors. It’s the same thing.
To FAI: I assumed this was a pilot program based on the following quote: “She [Helen Thompson] added, “The Probation Specialized Units Recovery Act Program was designed as a pilot project to test a new and innovative approach for enhancing public safety. In so doing, this program met or exceeded four of the five grant objectives.””
FAI: “I think that both parties should abide by the original agreement. If one party doesn’t fulfill their part of the bargain, as in this case, than an adjustment needs to be made–a percentage is taken back for whatever didn’t get done.”
So you concede that the county was essentially 90% in compliance (I would argue with respect to a pilot program bc that is what the county perceived it to be), want them to return 10% of the monies (wrt a pilot program), and only continue 90% of the grant funding in the future? But would you characterize that as MISUSE? That is the real issue here…
Elaine: “But would you characterize that as MISUSE? That is the real issue here… “
Again you would have to see the grant application and see what emphasis was put on what. Looking at the five objectives you will see that only objectives #2-5 are real program objectives. If in the application the grantee/grantor gave priority to objective #5, and that was the objective that was not met, then it could be characterized as misleading.
When scoring a grant application, applications are awarded more points for some items over others depending on how significant the grantor feels this objective will benefit the overall program.
Otherwise certain objectives have a higher priority. If this objective was the main reason your institution receieved this funding over another institution and you didn’t fulfill your commitment, then it is a problem.
Elaine: here you can take a look at the exchange:
LINK ([url]http://www.inspectorgeneral.ca.gov/res/docs/pdf/Final Report Yolo County Probation Department.pdf[/url])
FAI: “Otherwise certain objectives have a higher priority. If this objective was the main reason your institution receieved this funding over another institution and you didn’t fulfill your commitment, then it is a problem.”
I would agree with you on this point, but we do not know if that is the case here. We just don’t have enough information. However, my guess is this entire exchange was pointless, unnecessary, and unprofessional…
To dmg: link did not find file – error message only.
I see that, the problem appears to be that after a space, the program no longer recognizes an address.
Any way, if you go to http://www.inspectorgeneral.ca.gov/reports.htm and click on “Review of County of Yolo Probation Department, Review of the Probation Specialized Units Recovery Act Program” and scroll down to page five you can read the October 12 exchange where they get the response from Margerie Rist.
I disagree with your contention here that they adhered to 90% of the program, let’s look at the requirements:
1. Maintain two full -time jobs for probation officers.
2. Supervise 115 sexual offenders.
3. Make more than 4400 contacts with sexual offenders on probation.
4. Maintain caseloads of less than 40 sexual offenders on the three caseloads.
5. Make 300 contacts with victims of the perpetrators we have on probation.
So the requirement is to use the money to hire two fulltime probation officer, fine. They will supervise 115 offenders, reduce their caseload, but clearly the biggest component of this program is the outreach to the victims of the perps that they have on probation.
What you are missing is that they are essentially giving them the resources in the first part in order to do the second part of the grant and the key element is the last one because the is the new portion. Everything else they are already doing essentially.
As Chick said: “One of the key elements of the program was to contact victims to refer them to services and especially to notify them when their perpetrators were released from prison. My review finds that with only four months left in the grant period, not even a third of the promised contacts with victims were made.”
That’s the purpose of the program and it is not being completed. In the other thread you want money to be held accountable but when they try to hold money accountable, you scream and defend them. You can’t have it both ways.
To dmg: I estimated 90% compliance bc according to your article 4 of 5 goals were met, and almost half of the remaining goal was met. That is approximately 90%.
Now you add the information that the 5th compenent that was only half fulfilled was “the key element” and should be somehow given more weight than 20%. How much more weight? Does the IG assign each goal a particular weight, and the missed one according to her had greater weight?
As Yolo County pointed out, this was a new program, and they ran into an unexpected snag (not unusual for a pilot program). Obviously the IG didn’t find the behavior of Yolo County so egregious that she decided to pull any grant funding as far as I can tell. This undermines any argument of “misuse” of funds that was claimed (by whom I am not sure other than the news media). All the IG said was corrective action needed to be taken. Perhaps the IG has some suggestions on how to address the identified problem.
dmg: “That’s the purpose of the program and it is not being completed. In the other thread you want money to be held accountable but when they try to hold money accountable, you scream and defend them. You can’t have it both ways.”
I did not “scream” anything, but noted the IG was probably being overzealous if the Yolo Probation Dept. carried out 90% of its goal on a pilot project (see above discussion on how I arrived at 90% figure). However, in the Beeman case, there was a clear misuse of funds to feed a gambling habit. And this misuse occurred over several years, yet the IG only just caught the misuse. Where was the IG all that time? Now suddenly she expresses “outrage” (slight hyperbole here)? This is only one of the reasons I would not give out grant money like this. Frankly I think most of this money is a waste of taxpayer dollars. In the IG’s letter, she even admits “we did not assess the efficiency or effectiveness of program operations”. Catch my drift?
“Now you add the information that the 5th compenent that was only half fulfilled was “the key element” and should be somehow given more weight than 20%. How much more weight? Does the IG assign each goal a particular weight, and the missed one according to her had greater weight? “
I didn’t add any information, I simply looked at the requirements and the statement by the IG and inferred that of all five requirements, they are not of equal weight.