2020-041 - Status of Recommendations - Table 1

5. To ensure that it can better monitor how its medical staff and contractors adhere to the informed consent requirements of Title 22, sections 70707.1 through 70707.7, the Receiver's Office should develop a plan by August 2014 to implement a process by December 2014 that would include working with Corrections to establish a process whereby inmates can have witnesses of their choice when consenting to sterilization, as required by Title 22, or working to revise such requirements so that there is an appropriate balance between the need for secure custody and the inmate's ability to have a witness of her choice.

14. The commission should follow the requirement in state law to inspect and audit the accounting records of utilities it regulates within required time frames. If the commission chooses to continue to meet this requirement through the general rate case process, it should ensure that all utilities file a general rate case on a regular schedule so as to comply with the state law's audit requirement. However, the commission should follow alternate methods to comply with the audit requirement when a utility will not be filing for its general rate case in time to be audited within three or five years, depending on the timing of the required audit for that utility.

12. To detect and deter carriers from operating illegally at airports, the branch should use as intended the five positions added for passenger carrier enforcement at airports. If the branch chooses not to designate five positions solely for this purpose, then it must be prepared to demonstrate regularly that an equivalent number of full-time positions are working on this activity.

7. To further its mission to obtain the lowest possible rates for reliable and safe utility service for ratepayers through its reviews of balancing accounts, Ratepayer Advocates should use the commission's list of balancing accounts to guide its selection of the number, size, and type of balancing accounts to review so that its review coverage is more proportional across all utilities.

3. To protect the health, safety, and well-being of residents in long-term health care facilities, Public Health should improve its oversight of complaint processing. Specifically, by May 1, 2015, Public Health should establish a specific time frame for completing facility-related complaint investigations and ERI investigations and inform staff of the expectation that they will meet the time frame. Public Health should also require district offices to provide adequate, documented justification whenever they fail to meet this time frame.

4. To protect the health, safety, and well-being of residents in long-term health care facilities, Public Health should improve its oversight of complaint processing. Specifically, by May 1, 2015, Public Health should develop formal written policies and procedures for PCB to process complaints about certified individuals in a timely manner. These policies and procedures should include specific time frames for prioritizing and assigning complaints to investigators, for initiating investigations, and for completing the investigations. Public Health should also inform staff of the expectation that they will meet these time frames. It should require PCB to provide adequate, documented justification whenever PCB fails to meet the time frames.

8. To protect the residents in long-term health care facilities from potential harm, Public Health should ensure that its district offices have adequate staffing levels for its licensing and certification responsibilities, including staffing levels that allow prompt investigations of complaints. Specifically, Public Health should continue working with CalHR to complete the reclassification of district offices' investigator supervisor and manager positions and then quickly fill the vacant positions at district offices.

40. To promote continued improvement in the CWS system, Social Services should encourage each county CWS agency to designate personnel to update regularly their policies and procedures, to include a detailed description of the need for ongoing supervisory reviews of key aspects of their respective service processes and incorporate that description into their policies and procedures, and to designate personnel to perform regular quality assurance reviews.

41. To promote continued improvement in the CWS system, Social Services should ask each county CWS agency to report to Social Services on the status of these efforts within 60 days, six months, and one year from the publication of this audit report.

9. To help ensure that university faculty and staff do not mishandle student reports of incidents, all faculty and staff should receive training annually, consistent with their role, on their obligations in responding to and reporting incidents of sexual harassment and sexual violence.

21. All universities should provide their education on sexual harassment and sexual violence to incoming students as close as possible to when they arrive on campus but no later than the first few weeks of their first semester or quarter. Further, universities should provide periodic refresher educational programs, at least annually, to all students on campus to ensure that they are aware of how to handle and report incidents of sexual harassment and sexual violence.

4. To report to the Legislature about the effectiveness of its RADS program and to better inform decisions about expanding the number of analyzed sexual assault evidence kits, Justice should amend its agreements with the counties participating in the RADS program to require those counties to report case outcome information, such as arrests and convictions for the sexual assault evidence kits Justice has analyzed under the program. Justice should then report annually to the Legislature about those case outcomes.

3. To improve the usefulness of the Judicial Council's semiannual reports until a statutory requirement is enacted, the AOC should work with the Judicial Council to pursue a cost-effective method to do the following:

- Include new contracts and the complete history of contracts amended during the reporting period in the semiannual reports, including the date of the original contract; the original contract amount and duration; all subsequent contract amendments; and the date, amount, and duration of each such amendment. The AOC should present this information beginning with the semiannual report covering the July 1, 2014, through December 31, 2014, reporting period.

4. To improve the usefulness of the Judicial Council's semiannual reports until a statutory requirement is enacted, the AOC should work with the Judicial Council to pursue a cost-effective method to do the following:

- Begin tracking additional information in its data systems for inclusion in the semiannual reports. This information should include whether a contract was competitively bid, the justification if it was not competitively bid, and whether the contract was with a Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise. For information technology contracts, the AOC should identify whether the contract was with a small business. The AOC should present this information beginning with the semiannual report covering the July 1, 2014, through December 31, 2014, reporting period.

5. The AOC should implement all of the best practices related to general and business process application controls as outlined in the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual no later than December 31, 2014, thereby strengthening and continuously monitoring the effectiveness of the controls over its information systems. In addition, the AOC should immediately begin implementing improvements to its controls over access to its information systems and place these improvements into effect by February 2014. Finally, the AOC should provide guidance and routinely follow up with the superior courts—requiring updates every six months until all identified issues are corrected—to ensure that they make the necessary improvements to their general and business process application controls.

6. The AOC, the Supreme Court, and the first, second, and fourth districts should implement procedures to ensure that they follow a competitive process for their procurements when required.

13. The AOC should revise the judicial contracting manual to require judicial entities to maintain documentation on their determinations of fair and reasonable pricing for purchases under $5,000.

17. The AOC should revise the judicial contracting manual to require that judicial entities maintain documentation for their evaluation and selection process used for competitive procurements. The AOC should also strengthen its procedures to ensure that bid evaluations are conducted properly and calculated correctly.

20. The AOC, HCRC, Supreme Court, and fourth and fifth districts should implement procedures to ensure that required noncompetitive procurement processes, such as preparing justifications and obtaining approval for sole-source procurements, are properly documented. Additionally, the AOC should ensure that it prepares the appropriate documentation when it amends a contract that it has competitively solicited and the amendment includes a change that was not evaluated in the original competitive process.

25. The AOC should implement procedures to ensure that its internal controls over payments are followed and that procurements are approved before ordering and receiving goods and services.