Grand jury criticism of little-known county agency is itself open to some criticism
An Orange County Register editorial
Excerpts:
Most Orange County residents probably know little or nothing about the county's public administrator/public guardian. So it is odd to have seen this obscure office the subject of various headlines after the Orange County grand jury issued two scathing reports about management procedures there.
Because of the scathing tone of the reports and the nature of the work, which deals with the government's handling of personal assets, we expected the investigation to be filled with allegations of abuse. Instead, the reports focus on detailed complaints about the agency's management structure.
We're not usually given to accepting the "political vendetta" argument, but we do find some things fishy about the double-barreled reports, which complain about excessive management growth, pension spiking and excessively large caseloads by conservators responsible for handling the assets of the clients. For starters, we can't figure out why the grand jury took the unusual step of releasing a second report before the legal deadline had expired for Mr. Williams to respond to the first one.
But how could anything have changed even before the deadline had expired to even respond to the allegations? The second report, which supposedly contained new information, read to us like a rehashing of the first report. Our guess is the grand jury received a leaked copy of Mr. Williams' initial rebuttal to the Board of Supervisors, and lashed out again because they didn't like that he disputed each of their recommendations.
Full Article and Source:
Editorial: The watchdog vs. the guardian
See also:
Senior Tsunami
Egregious Mismanagement at Public Guardian's Office
An Orange County Register editorial
Excerpts:
Most Orange County residents probably know little or nothing about the county's public administrator/public guardian. So it is odd to have seen this obscure office the subject of various headlines after the Orange County grand jury issued two scathing reports about management procedures there.
Because of the scathing tone of the reports and the nature of the work, which deals with the government's handling of personal assets, we expected the investigation to be filled with allegations of abuse. Instead, the reports focus on detailed complaints about the agency's management structure.
We're not usually given to accepting the "political vendetta" argument, but we do find some things fishy about the double-barreled reports, which complain about excessive management growth, pension spiking and excessively large caseloads by conservators responsible for handling the assets of the clients. For starters, we can't figure out why the grand jury took the unusual step of releasing a second report before the legal deadline had expired for Mr. Williams to respond to the first one.
But how could anything have changed even before the deadline had expired to even respond to the allegations? The second report, which supposedly contained new information, read to us like a rehashing of the first report. Our guess is the grand jury received a leaked copy of Mr. Williams' initial rebuttal to the Board of Supervisors, and lashed out again because they didn't like that he disputed each of their recommendations.
Full Article and Source:
Editorial: The watchdog vs. the guardian
See also:
Senior Tsunami
Egregious Mismanagement at Public Guardian's Office
5 comments:
Although I am pleased with the grand jury's report and attention to problems of conservatorship abuse, this editorial shows a side that I had not given thought to.
It's important that the report be clean and untainted.
If this editorial is correct or even a hint of being correct, there should be an investigation.
I tend to think the Grand Jury report was on the up and up.
The bottom line here should be something must be done!
"I tend to think the Grand Jury report was on the up and up." Hah, nothing is on the up and up.
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