Probation Dept. Use of Overtime Goes Unchecked

As the cash-strapped Los Angeles County Probation Department weighs closure of its rehabilitation camps for juvenile delinquents and other cutbacks, auditors have found that the department is paying more than $20 million a year in overtime--much of it undocumented, unchecked and possibly unnecessary.

Worse, according to the county Department of Auditor-Controller, a failure to properly budget “extraordinary� overtime expenditures, which have grown nearly 500% over the past five years, has forced the nation’s largest probation agency to use money earmarked for other expenses.

In the last fiscal year, probation officials budgeted $5.4 million for overtime, then took $14.9 million from other programs to pay the actual costs, the auditors found. The annual budget last year was $305 million.

Overtime spending by the Probation Department has soared from $5.4 million five years ago to $20.3 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

At least $2 million of that money was supposed to have been spent ensuring that convicted criminals living in Los Angeles were complying with the terms of their probation, Acting Chief Probation Officer Walter J. Kelly said in an interview Friday.

And despite his attempts to rein in overtime spending in recent months, Kelly said the Probation Department expects to spend a record $22.3 million on overtime during the current fiscal year--much of it once again siphoned from other programs.

“Clearly the effort we are making has not yet taken effect,� said Kelly, a career probation official who assumed the department’s top job in March after longtime chief Barry J. Nidorf retired.

“Are we doing this in the most cost-efficient manner?� Kelly asked rhetorically. “The answer is no.�

The county’s chief administrative officer, David Janssen, agreed, saying he hopes that the audit spurs Kelly to speed up the management improvements he has promised.

“He needs to tighten up on the management and use of overtime,� Janssen said. “He needs to be hiring more people, not paying so much overtime. He has 400 vacant positions. He appears to have the authorized positions. He needs to fill them.�

Auditors concluded in a report issued this week that the Probation Department could save at least $2.5 million a year, and potentially much more, simply by instituting some controls over overtime spending.

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Excessive use of overtime, auditors found, was particularly prevalent in the department’s four juvenile halls and 18 juvenile probation camps.

The department supervises 80,000 adult and 16,000 juvenile offenders, administers drug tests, visits the homes of probationers, prepares sentencing reports for judges, and refers delinquents to community-based facilities in lieu of Juvenile Hall.

Kelly blamed much of the overtime use on an “institutionalized� departmental culture in which managers have assumed that it is cheaper to pay existing staff time-and-a-half overtime wages than to hire more employees and pay them a complete package of salary and benefits.

The audit, which Kelly said he commissioned, clearly shows that it would be cheaper to hire more probation officers, he said.

As a result, Kelly said he is moving to fill hundreds of vacant positions. But he said his past efforts to fill openings were only partially successful because of a countywide hiring freeze. Janssen said he and the supervisors would approve Kelly’s requests for more staff.

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Auditors attributed much of the excessive overtime to lax oversight and mismanagement, saying the department has “minimal written policies and procedures governing the use and approval of overtime.�

In their report, auditors documented a list of abuses. There were 57 employees who worked more than 1,000 hours of overtime last year, and one who claimed to work 2,250 hours, or 43 extra hours each week.

But because those employees were never required to sign in and out or to seek approval for additional hours, the auditors concluded, “we could not verify if they actually worked the overtime.�

An employee at one juvenile camp worked two hours of overtime, six days a week, to ensure that water pumps were on. And even though nine cooks worked more than 500 hours of overtime, probation officers at one juvenile camp still did some cooking.

“I don’t know what that does for the quality of food,� Kelly said, but “obviously it costs the organization a lot more money� to have highly trained and well-paid probation officers performing such menial tasks.

Auditors said one probation officer was paid three hours of overtime a week just to drive time cards to the department’s headquarters, and another camp employee worked 119 hours in a two-month span “to coach football games.�

The department has always relied on the extensive use of overtime to maintain legally required staffing levels at the juvenile halls and camps, but Kelly said he is troubled by an unexplained $6 million increase in overtime payouts last year.

“I was not able to get an explanation as to what was driving that�--particularly because there was little effort to keep track of overtime, Kelly said. He has since had new time cards printed, which include a space in which workers are required to state the reasons for their overtime.

The auditors’ findings seem sure to increase the controversy surrounding Kelly, who recently was given a vote of no confidence by “an overwhelming majority� of members in the newly formed Probation Managers Assn.

In an internal letter to the county Board of Supervisors, the association--which claims to represent 60 or so managers--asked that a nationwide search be conducted for a permanent probation director.

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Kelly “is obviously without expertise and refuses to consult with those who are experienced and experts in their specialized areas when making decisions,� said the unsigned Nov. 24 letter. “With this in mind, probation managers are troubled about the future welfare of the department, the community and the clients we serve.�

An association representative, director of intake and detention control Michelle Lewis, declined to elaborate, saying the group preferred to let the letter speak for itself.

Kelly said he met with four representatives of the managers association Nov. 25 to hear their concerns, but that he was rebuffed.

“I asked if they were interested in a discussion of their concerns, and they said no,� Kelly said. “So I’m really at a loss� as to the specific nature of their complaints.

Their paramount concern, the managers said in their letter to the supervisors, is the department’s loss of an $18-million juvenile crime enforcement “challenge grant� from the state this year because of “poor decision making, sub-standard planning� and failure to heed consultants hired from the Rand Corp. to advise the county on how best to secure the money.

The funds were part of a $50-million grant awarded in May to about a dozen counties throughout California.

But Kelly, and another high-ranking county official who also lobbied for the funds, said Friday that Los Angeles was snubbed for reasons that had nothing to do with mismanagement.

Other county officials have defended Kelly, saying he is experiencing such turbulence only because he is trying to put his own imprint on a staff that is used to taking orders from Nidorf, a very popular director who ran the department for 13 years.

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But Kelly’s short tenure has been plagued by other difficulties, including two recent slayings of teenagers, allegedly by youths who had been placed in the care of the Probation Department and sent to live in community-based residential care facilities.

In response to an angry Board of Supervisors, Kelly has ordered an overhaul of the way the Probation Department monitors the hundreds of young people it refers to such homes.

Meanwhile, the department’s higher-security probation camps, which have long been considered an innovative way to rehabilitate the more incorrigible teenage delinquents, remain in financial jeopardy.

Each year at budget time, probation officials threaten to close the camps for lack of funds. In May, Kelly raised such concerns again, saying he lacked enough probation officers to staff the camps or the department’s juvenile halls.

Kelly said he still hopes that the supervisors give him the Probation Department’s top job permanently, ticking off a resume that includes service as the department’s chief deputy probation officer, chief of staff and head of the Office of Planning and Evaluation.

Meanwhile, he said, “I’m just trying to do the job that’s in front of me.�