Nice Try County, but still a FAIL – New Policy Clause

This is part of an ongoing series about Los Angeles County gov't waste.

Relatively recently one Department’s policy manual added a clause that at first glance looks like it’s addressing the waste reporting policy issue I mentioned earlier. It’s possible precursors of this site persuaded them to finally address waste reporting, or at least LOOK like they are addressing it. (I’ve given similar grievances before this site was created.)

The problem is a comparison with my suggested policy text (see link below) shows it’s missing most of the steps needed to be useful. Here is a paraphrasing of the clause added by a given Department of the County:

Office managers shall report any and all wasteful practices to [a given office].

There are multiple problems with this. The biggest one is that the receiving office is not required to do anything with the information. It could sit silently in a dusty folder forever (real or virtual). Remember the ending scene in the first Indiana Jones where the government filed away the Ark of Covenant in a giant musty warehouse? Yeah, could be like that, but doesn’t melt your face off, just your tax wallet. 

I found no checks-and-balances stated to ensure something is done with the information. 

Disclaimer: I may have missed related info while searching in the given policy manual. Ideally there would be a single section of the manual dedicated to waste and waste reporting, resembling the draft policy linked to earlier. This would make it easier for employees and the public to find and know waste-related policy. 

The second problem is those in echelons (ranks) lower than office manager are NOT required to report anything. This is obviously a mistake. Those in the proverbial trenches often spot issues managers either don’t spot, or want to ignore. 

Ranks above office manager should also be required to report. In fact, EVERY County employee should be required to report notable or highly suspect waste. 

Perhaps employees should be required to report the issue to their immediate supervisor first (barring special circumstances), but if the supervisor doesn't respond within a reasonable time, have a way to report DIRECTLY to the central reporting office, because the chain of command often manages to conveniently lose complaints or embarrassing info. The more links in the reporting chain the more chance of dark magic eating reports.

The reporting employee should also be queried by a general County inspector and perhaps an outside auditor every 18 months or so until the issue is resolved to the reporting employee’s satisfaction (or they promote out or retire).

I’m sure administrators will claim, “but we’d be flooded with complaints and complainers”. The administrators have many ways to complain about complainers, inventing reasons to ignore them. But as mentioned in the draft policy description (see bottom for a link), it’s relatively cheap and easy to simply log complaints or notices. 

Rough cost estimations would be given to logged issues to compare the cost to resolve issue versus the benefits, and the lowest hanging fruit and/or biggest waste is done first, or at least studied first. I’m not suggesting they all be resolved; I’m realistic and practical. At least get friggen started. The log also helps managers spot general patterns such that multiple issues could perhaps be resolved with one solution. 

Tracking the issue reporter’s satisfaction status allows different departments and groups to be compared. For example, if one department has a satisfaction rate of 40% while the average is 70%, then something odd is probably going on there, requiring follow-up. 

Stop being half-ass cowards, County! Do It Right! 

(Updated 2/24/2025)

Link: Policy Sample.

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