2013-041 - Status of Recommendations - Table 4

3. To ensure that they comply with the Clery Act by correctly reporting all applicable crimes and disclosing all required campus security policies, institutions should review and adhere to applicable guidance related to the Clery Act, including Education's Office of Postsecondary Education's (OPE) Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting (OPE handbook) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook.

9. To ensure that they comply with the Clery Act by correctly reporting all applicable crimes and disclosing all required campus security policies, institutions should thoroughly review the Clery Act crime statistics and security policy disclosures in their annual security reports for accuracy before publication.

13. To ensure that they comply with the Clery Act by correctly reporting all applicable crimes and disclosing all required campus security policies, institutions should ensure that they have a complete, accessible daily crime log, as required by the Clery Act.

17. Institutions should ensure that they properly notify both current and prospective students and employees of the availability of their annual security reports in the manner prescribed by the Clery Act.

6. To ensure that they comply with the Clery Act by correctly reporting all applicable crimes and disclosing all required campus security policies, institutions should review and adhere to applicable guidance related to the Clery Act, including Education's Office of Postsecondary Education's (OPE) Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting (OPE handbook) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook.

12. To ensure that they comply with the Clery Act by correctly reporting all applicable crimes and disclosing all required campus security policies, institutions should thoroughly review the Clery Act crime statistics and security policy disclosures in their annual security reports for accuracy before publication.

20. Institutions should ensure that they properly notify both current and prospective students and employees of the availability of their annual security reports in the manner prescribed by the Clery Act.

1. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

23. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require benefit committee filing officers to avail themselves of the free training provided by the FPPC so that the filing officers are aware of and meet their responsibilities under the political reform act. Counties should also adhere to FPPC guidelines for notifying filers of the need to submit statements of economic interests.

2. To be better informed about the compensation of their consultants, including any potential conflicts of interest, California Communities and Municipal Finance should require the consulting firms that staff their organizations to disclose the amount and structure of compensation provided to individual consultants, including disclosing whether any of this compensation is tied to the volume of bond sales.

4. In implementing its January 2012 contracting policy, California Communities should either periodically subject existing contracts to competitive bidding or perform some other price comparison analysis to ensure that the public funds it oversees are used effectively.

8. Once the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalizes its definition of municipal advisor, California Communities should have its legal counsel review whether HB Capital should register with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.

4. To increase accountability and transparency in its governance, the city should develop a formal policy that describes the circumstances under which revenues can be transferred from its power department, and the limits and permissible uses of transferred revenue.

6. To ensure that it develops complete and appropriate personnel policies and procedures, the new human resources director should ensure that the city's policies and procedures include, at a minimum, requirements for performing and documenting the analyses and justifications for appointments, including promotions, to management positions.

7. To ensure that it develops complete and appropriate personnel policies and procedures, the new human resources director should ensure that the city's policies and procedures include, at a minimum, requirements for minimum qualifications, desirable qualifications, and job duties for all city executive positions.

8. To ensure that it develops complete and appropriate personnel policies and procedures, the new human resources director should ensure that the city's policies and procedures include, at a minimum, a periodic appraisal process for executives.

9. To ensure that it develops complete and appropriate personnel policies and procedures, the new human resources director should ensure that the city's policies and procedures include, at a minimum, an improved methodology for and analysis of future salary surveys, ensuring that they are performed by staff or a consultant with experience and expertise in the area of salary surveys.

10. The city should determine whether employees have a vested right to longevity payments and whether it can legally reduce or discontinue the original longevity program as a means to reduce its costs.

11. To ensure accurate reporting and payment of retirement benefits, the city should work with California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) to resolve the reported findings and observation noted in CalPERS April 2012 audit report within a reasonable period of time.

16. To better control contract expenditures and ensure that it receives the best value for the services it purchases, the city should require that all contracts contain a well-defined scope of work and deliverables that a sufficiently detailed invoice can be measured against.

18. To better control contract expenditures and ensure that it receives the best value for the services it purchases, the city should also require the finance department to review invoices to identify those that lack sufficient detail and return such invoices to the appropriate contract manager to obtain a revised invoice that is sufficiently detailed.

20. To the extent that the city implements policies that affect contracts, the city should also ensure that it reviews all current contracts and amends them, if necessary, to comply with newly established policies.

21. To improve its internal controls, better control costs, and prevent abuse from occurring, the city should require the finance department to review credit card expenditures for appropriateness.

22. To improve its internal controls, better control costs, and prevent abuse from occurring, the city should revise its travel and expense reimbursement policy to be clear about the expenditure limits for meals, and add a limit for lodging accommodations.

27. To address the structural deficit in its general fund, the city should seek long-term solutions to balance the general fund's expenditures and revenues and lessen its reliance on transfers from other city funds. These solutions could include revenue increases, such as the proposed increased and new parcel tax, as well as looking for ways to reduce expenditures.

28. The city should clearly present the general fund structural deficit to the city council and the public in a budget that includes narrative and summary information to help users understand the city's budget process and its priorities and challenges, and that incorporates the elements for improved budgeting practices recommended by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA).

29. To better guide its budget preparation and improve transparency, the city should develop budget policies, particularly for long-term planning, that incorporate the elements that the GFOA recommends and make these policies available to the public on its Web site.

31. The city should improve the monitoring of expenditures against the approved budget by establishing a centralized process to regularly monitor and report to the city administrator and the city council on the status of the budget.

32. To ensure that it issues debt when doing so is in the best interests of the city and is consistent with its long-term financial goals, the city should establish a comprehensive debt policy that includes the elements that the GFOA recommends and make the debt policy it establishes available on its Web site.

33. To ensure that the city council and public are well informed regarding proposed debt decisions, the city should provide summary information that clearly explains the costs, risks, and benefits related to the proposed decisions in its agenda packets, and should provide these in advance on its Web site.

34. To ensure that it can demonstrate sufficient analysis and provide justification for its decisions on significant energy-related transactions, the city should develop an integrated energy strategy that examines all elements of its energy needs, sources, and objectives.

35. To ensure that it can demonstrate sufficient analysis and provide justification for its decisions on significant energy-related transactions, the city should create a formal process and guidelines that include the following: identifying the benefits and risks of proposed transactions, quantifying the benefits and risks of proposed transactions, evaluating and comparing proposed transactions against alternative proposals, quantifying the impact of proposed transactions on short-term and long-term rates paid by the city's energy customers, seeking an independent validation of the fair market value of proposed transactions, and documenting and communicating the findings of the evaluation process to the city council.

36. If the city plans to continue to rely on the advice of its consultants when entering significant energy-related transactions, it should develop a process for the consultants to provide written documentation that would enable the city to satisfy the process and guidelines outlined in the previous two recommendations.

37. To minimize the continuing financial losses on the two currently outstanding interest rate swaps, the city should develop a clear process for deciding how it will terminate these swaps based on the cost and future risk to the city.

38. To ensure that any future decisions to enter into interest rate swaps are carefully considered, the city should develop and follow a process that thoroughly analyzes the risks and benefits of the potential swap transaction.

39. To ensure that any future decisions to enter into interest rate swaps are carefully considered, the city should specifically disallow the use of derivatives for speculative purposes and should require the retention of the documents and analyses that support the decision to enter into the swap.

2. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

10. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should more rigorously review applications that are to be administered and spent by an entity other than the local government that applies for the funds. Specifically, benefit committees should require that each grant application clearly show how the grant will mitigate the impact of the casino on the applicant agency.

24. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require benefit committee filing officers to avail themselves of the free training provided by the FPPC so that the filing officers are aware of and meet their responsibilities under the political reform act. Counties should also adhere to FPPC guidelines for notifying filers of the need to submit statements of economic interests.

2. To ensure that child abuse and neglect allegations receive timely resolution, the department should assess whether it needs to permanently allocate more resources to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect.

4. To ensure that it is placing children only in safe homes, the department should measure its performance and adjust its practices to adhere to state law, which requires that all homes be assessed prior to the placement of the child.

5. To improve its process for placing children with a relative, the department should analyze the best practices used by other county child welfare services agencies for such placements. The department should then implement changes in its practices so that relatives and their homes are approved prior to placement, as required by state law.

7. To fully benefit from its death review process, the department should implement the resulting recommendations.

3. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

5. To help reduce its operating costs and improve its overall financial situation, the Health Care System should continue to try to modify its employee benefits, such as paid time off, so they are aligned with industry practice.

4. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

16. Los Angeles County, San Diego County, San Diego Court, and Santa Clara County should improve protocols for reviewing statutes that affect collection and distribution practices so that future changes can be acted upon.

5. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

13. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should more rigorously review applications that are to be administered and spent by an entity other than the local government that applies for the funds. Specifically, benefit committees should require that each grant application clearly show how the grant will mitigate the impact of the casino on the applicant agency.

17. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should ensure that eligible cities and counties receive the proportional share of funding they are set aside according to the nexus test by making the governments aware of available distribution fund grants and of the minimum grant amounts that are set aside for them under the nexus test.

21. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should encourage eligible local governments to submit multiple applications so that the benefit committees can choose appropriate projects while ensuring that local governments are awarded the amount defined in law.

26. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require benefit committee filing officers to avail themselves of the free training provided by the FPPC so that the filing officers are aware of and meet their responsibilities under the political reform act. Counties should also adhere to FPPC guidelines for notifying filers of the need to submit statements of economic interests.

29. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should ensure that benefit committees' conflict-of-interest codes comply with the political reform act by reviewing the act and their codes, and changing the codes as necessary to meet the act's requirements.

6. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

14. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should more rigorously review applications that are to be administered and spent by an entity other than the local government that applies for the funds. Specifically, benefit committees should require that each grant application clearly show how the grant will mitigate the impact of the casino on the applicant agency.

22. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should encourage eligible local governments to submit multiple applications so that the benefit committees can choose appropriate projects while ensuring that local governments are awarded the amount defined in law.

27. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require benefit committee filing officers to avail themselves of the free training provided by the FPPC so that the filing officers are aware of and meet their responsibilities under the political reform act. Counties should also adhere to FPPC guidelines for notifying filers of the need to submit statements of economic interests.

30. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should ensure that benefit committees' conflict-of-interest codes comply with the political reform act by reviewing the act and their codes, and changing the codes as necessary to meet the act's requirements.

7. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should require that the county auditor review each grant application to ensure a rigorous analysis of a casino's impact and of the proportion of funding for the project provided by the grant. Benefit committees should consider a grant application only when the county auditor certifies that the applicant has quantified the impact of the casino and verifies that the grant funds requested will be proportional to the casino's impact.

8. To help ensure that they meet the grant requirements established in the Government Code, counties should review the law for changes that may affect applicants' eligibility for distribution fund grants before awarding the grants so that ineligible entities do not receive grants.