Two recent San Diego County Grand Jury reports raised concerns about the use of public funds, but, aside from ringing alarms, the reports do not hold anyone accountable for wasting taxpayer dollars.
The first report, issued on May 24, 2016, calls into question the use of school bond funds during the past 18 years by previous Boards of the San Ysidro School District. The report examined the way that district managed its bond funds, whether the Board member exercised due care and oversight in approving bond expenditures, and how the County Office of Education monitored the District’s financial activities.
The San Ysidro School District ran a school bond ballot measure in a special election in March 1997 that asked voters to authorize up to $250 million in bond assessments for construction of new schools, improvements of existing schools, and other expenses directly related to school facilities. Of the more than 12,000 registered voters in the District, less than 1,000 votes were cast to pass to authorize the bonds.
Since 1997, the District has issued $142 million of those bonds, in addition to $75 million in bonds issued to refinance other debt, and $67 million in other long-term financing. In total, nearly $300 million in transaction have occurred in a district that educates just over 5,000 students.
What the Grand Jury found was that Board members that served between 1997 and 2014 “disregarded their fiduciary responsibility to the citizens of San Ysidro by improper governance and failing to hold administrators accountable for complying with laws, regulations and Board of Trustees policies”. The report also confirmed that “former administrators withheld information from the Board of Trustees on issues related to expenditures and bond obligations” and that staff “were involved with the destruction of records” by burning documents on school property.
But after all this, the Grand Jury did not call for the District Attorney to file criminal charges, nor did it recommend legal action to recover taxpayer funds from employees, administrator, or board members that
engaged in irresponsible use of public funds. Not even a slap on the wrist.
The second report, issued on May 31, 2016, is critical of the Chula Vista police jail opened in 2004. The 48-bed jail is located within the $63 million police headquarters building in downtown Chula Vista and is the only city jail in San Diego County.
When it was approved in 2003, the City Council claimed it would be a cost savings in reducing booking fees paid to the Sheriff’s Department, as well as generating fees from other police agencies that would bring detainees to the new jail.
The Grand Jury found that the jail has been a financial drain on the City because it has never been near capacity. To generate more income, the City contracted with the US Marshall Service to hold federal inmates, but even that contract losses money. The City charges $110 per day for each inmate, but it costs the City over $155 per day to house them. And the Grand Jury warned that if the Marshall’s contract is cancelled, there is no justification to maintain a jail for the six daily arrests in the City.
So who’s’ the blame?
Chula Vista’s over-ambitious politicians in the early 2000s thought the fast-paced development on the Eastside would never end, and that housing prices would never go down. They committed to build a massive new police station and jail with revenues from developer fees that dried up with the housing crash. And now, taxpayers are left holding the bag to pay for a police complex that is drawing away resources from streets, parks, and police officers on the streets.
Again, the Grand Jury report did not lay the blame on anyone, nor did it seek any remedy to fix the financial strain on the City.
The Grand Jury is a very useful tool to root out corruption in public agencies and shed light on tax dollar waste, but is should do more to hold public officials accountable.
Working with the County District Attorney, the Grand Jury could be more effective in sending a message to those that fail in their fiduciary duty to taxpayers by handing their findings over for criminal prosecution, or initiating civil lawsuits to recover wasted tax dollars.
Wasting more money doesn’t help.