Grand Jury slams county’s approach to employee safety
An investigation by the 202022 Tuolumne County Civil Grand Jury found that key documents related to safety policies and procedures for county employees haven’t been updated in more than a decade, causing some departments to contract with outside entities for more current documentation.
The findings come from a new 33-page report released Friday that’s split into two parts. The first part covers the Grand Jury’s probe of the county’s safety planning and documentation for employees, while the second looks at the county Board of Supervisors’ role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic (look for a separate story on the latter in Thursday’s paper).
“The (county) administration lacks a culture that recognizes the importance of safety and that prioritizes, requires and rewards maintenance of procedures and safety information sharing,” the Grand Jury stated.
The Grand Jury also determined that the county does not have a document control system to ensure such safety documents are maintained, updated and tracked, nor does it have a safety management system that would provide a “systematic, explicit and comprehensive process for managing safety risks, including goal setting, planning and measuring performance.”
“A Safety Management System is woven into the fabric of an organization and is good business,” the Grand Jury wrote. “It becomes part of the culture — the way people do their jobs.”
Among the report’s findings was that neglect of the county’s more than 20 safety documents traces back to the 2008 economic recession, when budget cuts resulted in widespread layoffs that reduced the county HR Department’s staffing by nearly 50%.
As part of the investigation,
the Grand Jury said it conducted virtual interviews with 11 county employees, managers, executives and elected officials, as well as reviewed documents and best practices pertaining to county governance and workplace safety.
The Grand Jury said it found through reviewing the county’s safety documents that the last time they were updated ranged from 1991 to 2009. The most recently updated document, the county Master Safety Manual, covers topics ranging from forklift operation safety to emergency preparedness planning.
One such document, the Personnel Rules and Regulations, has not been updated since 1997 despite the county administrator’s pledge to do so by March 2021 in response to a previous Grand Jury report.
There was also no way to verify whether some of the documents were the latest versions or had been approved because they were missing approval signatures, and master copies could not be found, according to the report.
“The Board of Supervisors’ meeting minutes may have a record of approval,” the Grand Jury stated, “but it would be necessary to review all the meeting minutes going back more than 20 years to verify approval of all the documents, when a simple signed signature block on the face of the document would have provided the evidence to each reader at a glance.”
Multiple interviewees reportedly told the Grand Jury that the safety documents available on the county’s website are largely not used by county departments due to being so out of date, according to the report.
Some of the departments have issued contracts with private outside sources, such as Safety Services Co., for up-to-date safety documents and information, the report stated. The costs for the contracts and which departments issued them were not specified in the report, however.
A safety committee that consists of representatives from various county departments did not meet from the time COVID-19 restrictions began in early 2020 until March of this year, though an updated Injury and Illness Prevention Program, or IIPP, approved by the board in January expands the committee’s role and responsibilities.
Each of California’s 58 counties are required by CALOSHA regulations to maintain an IIPP. The county’s IIPP was previously updated in March 2009 before the one approved in January, which the Grand Jury noted came after approximately five years in draft form.
The report notably does not state the number of injuries to employees over the years and how that compares to other counties, including those that have updated safety documentation on a more consistent basis.
At the end of the first part of the report, the Grand Jury recommends that the board mandate the County Administrator’s Office to adopt a policy, document control system and safety management system by the end of the year; ensure the safety committee meets its responsibilities as outlined in the updated IIPP; and follow through on the previous commitment to update the 1997 Personnel Rules and Regulations by the end of the year.
All agencies that are the subject of a Grand Jury investigation and report are required to respond to the findings and recommendations made within 90 days.
When asked for a reaction this week, Assistant County Administrator Eric Erhardt said they will follow the law for responding to the report and tentatively plan to present proposed draft comments to the board for approval at its Aug. 19 meeting.
Erhardt said the draft comments will be published with the meeting agenda for the public to review before the meeting.
According to the report, the investigation was launched in response to a citizen’s complaint that “suggested a lack of leadership by (county) executives concerning compliance with state safety laws, regulations and procedures.”
Though grand juries don’t disclose the names of citizens who file complaints, former county resident Ken Perkins told The Union Democrat that he filed the complaint alerting the 2020-22 Grand Jury to the potential problems.
Perkins, who has since moved to Prescott, Arizona, may be familiar to some for filing a lawsuit against the county in 2018 after being denied public records he had requested about the effectiveness of the Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority, or the TCEDA.
The county ultimately settled the lawsuit with Perkins by paying his legal fees and providing him with the documents he requested, which he said ultimately proved the point he was trying to make all along — that the TCEDA lacked any sort of measurable ways to gauge its performance.
Around the same time as Perkins’ lawsuit, that year’s Grand Jury released a report on its own investigation of the TCEDA’S management practices and oversight that generated months of backlash from the community which ultimately led to the City Council and county Board of Supervisors shutting down the agency entirely in early 2019.
Perkins said his concerns about the county’s safety policies and procedures date back to 2014, when he spent six months volunteering in the county Human Resources Department to help update their employee safety programs, including the development of a management system.
Five years later, Perkins said he submitted multiple requests under the Public Records Act for the documents he had worked on in 2014 and discovered on the county website that nothing had been done.
“After 10 to 20 years of not having a sustainable program, we need to put into a place a program which will outlive county employees and politicians,” Perkins said. “These supervisors haven’t been around long, they’re mostly new to the process, and I think the lesson learned is they should make sure these documents are updated every year, and they abide by them. If anything comes out of this grand jury report, I hope they will in the future.”
All counties are required by state law to impanel a civil grand jury each year consisting of ordinary citizens who volunteer their time for the purpose of reviewing local detention facilities and investigating complaints against other public agencies and officials.
This year’s Tuolumne County Civil Grand Jury has opted to release standalone reports on each facility and agency as they are completed.
To view the full report on the juvenile hall, as well as other reports released this year on county Adult Protective Services, Tuolumne Utilities District, and the new Dambacher Detention Center, go online to https:// www. tuolumne. courts. ca.gov/general-info/grandjury.shtml.