Pubdate: Wed, 06 Apr 2016
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2016 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248

AN ACCOUNTABILITY SHORTFALL

L. A. County departments haven't figured out how to calculate Prop. 
47 savings, an audit finds.

The Los Angeles County auditor reported Tuesday that Proposition 47 
has generated millions of dollars in cost savings, but the most 
significant part of his findings had to do with the county's 
jarringly inadequate grasp of the basic numbers that describe and 
measure its workload.

You will recall that Proposition 47 was the 2014 ballot measure that 
converted several felonies, such as drug possession, to misdemeanors. 
The immediate effect was to reduce the caseloads of county 
departments that deal with criminal justice issues, such as the 
district attorney's office and the Probation Department. But by how 
much? And what were the savings?

The bottom line is that no one really knows, because the departments 
couldn't do the math.

"Our review noted that none of the affected departments reviewed have 
methods to capture, track, and measure the costs, savings and/ or 
service improvements ( or reductions) attributed to the Prop. 47 
population," Auditor- Controller John Naimo wrote Tuesday to the 
Board of Supervisors. "As a result, departments cannot accurately 
estimate and/ or quantify the cost savings ( or increases) and impact 
to their current and future operations at this time."

Seriously? County departments don't track the ebb, flow and varying 
costs of their work? Apparently not, at least not in any particularly 
useful manner.

For example, the district attorney's office can't estimate changes in 
its workload, Naimo wrote, because it tracks its cases separately at 
each courthouse, using different metrics in each location. The 
auditor spent months trying to make some sense out of other 
departments' figures and estimated that the Probation Department's 
workload reduction may be worth about $ 3.4 million - and that it was 
immediately absorbed by other projects ( although whether due to the 
department's craftiness or mathematical cluelessness the report does 
not specify). The sheriff estimated a workload reduction 
hypothetically worth $ 41.6 million, money that was diverted for non- 
Proposition- 47- related "emerging critical needs."

Government agencies always have "emerging critical needs" and to-do 
lists that seem to suck up any savings produced by changes in 
operations or policy, such as those resulting from the decreased 
arrests, prosecutions and convictions brought by Proposition 47. 
Those needs are generally legitimate. But it's the job of elected 
officials to determine - publicly - how to prioritize those needs and 
that makes it essential for departments and agencies to accurately 
measure their work and productivity. Without regular tracking and 
analysis of data, government is free to spend based on educated 
guesswork or political expediency.

In November, a year after voters approved the measure, The Times 
called on the county to report on the money its departments had 
saved, because we suspected that department chiefs and bureaucrats 
were hiding their windfalls in order to prevent the Board of 
Supervisors from snatching away the money to use it for things like 
drug rehabilitation and programs to reduce recidivism.

And there may indeed be some of that phenomenon at play. But the 
auditor's report suggests that most county departments lack a basic 
facility with data. That made them unready for Proposition 47 but, 
even more importantly, unready to perform any of their tasks with a 
level of nimbleness and wisdom sufficient for the 21st century. They 
must work hard to catch up.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom