2021-041 - Status of Recommendations - Table 3

11. To ensure that it has a method to hold charter schools accountable for their educational programs, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should, as a best practice, strengthen its authorization process by using the State Education Board's criteria for evaluating petitions.

13. To ensure compliance with state law, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should immediately review petitions to ensure they include all of the requirements in state law at the time of their approval.

18. To better ensure effective oversight of its charter schools' finances, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified should place a district representative as a nonvoting member on each charter school's governing board.

27. To ensure that it is able to identify high risk situations and deter repeat offenders, Santa Rita should specifically track all gassing attacks and use the tracking data as a tool to prevent future gassing attacks.

3. To strengthen its ability to oversee district expenditures, the board should require the district by August 2019 to prepare monthly summaries that report the total amounts it paid to each of its contractors, along with descriptions of the purpose of those payments, and to include the summaries with the monthly warrant lists it provides to the board.

5. By November 2019, the district should develop contract monitoring procedures with defined staff roles and responsibilities, including retaining evidence of monitoring efforts. The district should also train its staff to follow these procedures.

6. By November 2019, the district should develop procedures specifying a designated location for staff to retain contracts and related documentation and identifying those staff who are responsible for ensuring that these documents are stored appropriately. The district should also train staff to follow these procedures.

7. By November 2019, the district should work with the county office to ensure that its new financial system includes unique identifiers for contract payment authorization documents.

8. To identify its contracted personnel's potential conflicts of interest, the district should develop and implement a process by November 2019 to assess whether contracted personnel should be classified as consultants and are therefore subject to the district's code for disclosing financial interests.

9. The district should immediately follow its conflict-of-interest code to ensure that all required individuals file Forms 700.

12. To ensure compliance with government transparency laws in future meetings, the board should ensure that it publicly identifies all parties involved in real estate negotiations prior to entering closed sessions.

17. To ensure that it provides a clear strategic direction for the district, the board should develop a vision and establish goals for the district by November 2019 and regularly monitor progress toward achieving these goals, as district policy requires.

19. To increase the board's accountability and ensure the prudent spending of district funds, the board should implement procedures by August 2019 requiring that its members document on their requests for reimbursement how their travel complies with district policy.

22. To demonstrate its commitment to improving its governance over the district's operations, the board should immediately direct district staff to track and prioritize the implementation of the remaining outstanding recommendations from the FCMAT audit report. The board should also direct staff to analyze the recommendations relating to its terminated contracts with Del Terra, identify those recommendations that will continue to be relevant after the appointment of a new construction manager and a new program manager, and implement policies to strengthen the district's monitoring of those contractors. The board should then monitor the status of the recommendations to ensure their implementation.

24. To reinforce the ethical principles, laws, and policies that the board must follow, the district should establish a policy by July 2019 to provide biennial training to board members on ethics, applicable government transparency, conflict-of-interest requirements, and district policies.

26. To ensure that the bond committee includes representatives from all required constituencies, the district should verify and document representation of the committee members that the board appoints.

28. To ensure that district staff have appropriate guidance when awarding contracts under emergency conditions, the district should create and implement by November 2019 policies and procedures describing the protocol for awarding emergency contracts, including the use of the district's standard contracting forms. The district should also train staff to follow these policies and procedures.

30. To better ensure effective oversight of its charter schools' finances, Antelope Valley Union should place a district representative as a nonvoting member on each charter school's governing board.

19. To ensure Bakersfield requests and reports Clery Act crimes from local law enforcement, the institution should by August 2018 create and begin following a procedure, in conjunction with a written agreement with local law enforcement, to obtain crime statistics for the annual security report.

2. To best prepare to protect and care for people with access and functional needs, the county should revise its emergency plans by following the best practices that we included in our report. The county should begin implementing these practices as soon as possible. By no later than March 2020, the county should develop a schedule for completing updates to its emergency plans.

5. To ensure that the county maintains updated emergency plans that are consistent with current best practices, the county should adopt ordinances establishing requirements for the frequency with which the county must update its emergency plans and should set that frequency at no greater than five years.

8. To ensure that the county's emergency planning efforts more fully account for people with access and functional needs in the future, the county should adopt county ordinances that require the county's emergency managers to do the following during each update to the county's emergency plans: when planning to protect people with access and functional needs, adhere to the best practices and guidance that FEMA, Cal OES, and other relevant authorities have issued; report publicly to the boards of supervisors during emergency planning about the steps they have taken to address access and functional needs; consult periodically with a committee of community groups that represent people with a variety of access and functional needs; require that representatives of the community group committees present to the board of supervisors their review of the adequacy of the emergency plans.

23. To ensure it is efficiently using its resources, the district should eliminate its board members' automobile or transportation allowances and instead reimburse them based on their business mileage or transit use.

11. To ensure that all instructors are aware of the accessibility standards for instructional materials, Cerritos should include in its next collective bargaining negotiations a requirement for instructors to periodically attend accessibility trainings.

13. To ensure that its technology master plan supports the strategic goals of the district, Cerritos should update its master plan by June 2018, and should ensure that the plan includes detailed steps to accomplish its goals.

14. To increase the transparency of its annual review process, by June 2018, Cerritos should establish procedures requiring its departments to document attendees, input received, and agreements reached during meetings to consider instructional technology equipment requests.

7. To ensure that their teachers and staff have the information necessary to respond consistently, promptly, and appropriately to reduce suicide risk, the six LEAs we reviewed should revise their policies by March 2021 to comply with state law and incorporate the best practices in Education's model policy.

19. To improve their students' access to mental health professionals, Kern High School District, Ukiah Unified, Gateway Charter, Redwoods Charter, and Heartland Charter should coordinate with their respective counties to request MHSA funding to employ additional school counselors, school nurses, school social workers, and school psychologists.

2. To improve fiscal accountability and to ensure that audits are performed to appropriate standards, Irvine should adopt an internal audit function by December 2017.

6. To make certain that Irvine complies with the intent of competitive bidding for professional services, beginning immediately it should not include provisions in its RFPs for potential future services that are above and beyond the desired scope of work.

9. To maintain appropriate, transparent fiscal accountability, Irvine should amend city contracting and purchasing policies by December 2016 to make certain that all of its contracts and contract amendments with a proposed cost exceeding the threshold requiring city council or other approval receive the appropriate approvals, including approval for sole-source contracts. Further, city policies should require appropriate approvals when increases in spending authority are accomplished through a purchase order or other means.

10. To provide the public with adequate information regarding the city council's spending decisions, Irvine's city council should, by December 2016, include in its policies a requirement that motions by the council to appropriate revenue to fund a specific contract should name the recipients and proposed use of the funds.

11. To foster public confidence in its processes and findings, Irvine should conduct self-initiated investigations, reviews, or audits in an open and transparent manner that ensures independence. Specifically, Irvine should not establish advisory bodies exempt from open meeting laws to oversee these investigations, reviews, or audits. Instead, any required reports from contractors conducting such investigations, reviews, or audits should go to the city council or a standing committee of the city council to be discussed in either open or closed session, as appropriate.

1. To address the structural deficit in its general fund, the city should seek long-term solutions to balance its budget so that its expenditures do not exceed its revenues. These solutions should include eliminating the reliance on one-time gains to fund ongoing expenses and identifying opportunities to further reduce spending. The city should document its approach in a long-term financial plan that should account for the following: a forecast of at least five to 10 years into the future, updates to long-term planning activities as needed to provide direction to the budget process, and an analysis of its financial status; revenue and expenditure forecasts; and plan-monitoring mechanisms, such as a scorecard of key indicators of financial health.

2. To ensure that employee compensation aligns with job statements, the city should review its salary incentives and modify the eligibility criteria so that they match the job requirements.

3. Considering that the city's retirement benefits are more generous than those of most comparable cities, and in light of its financial situation, the city should reduce its employee benefits costs by negotiating with employee bargaining groups and key management employees for the elimination of further city contributions to the PARS supplemental benefit plan or at least and increase in participant contributions to cover the full employee share of the plan's costs, recognizing that under California case law the city may not destroy vested pension rights legislatively.

4. To minimize the use of its reserves to reduce long-term liabilities, the city should annually determine whether it has sufficient funding to cash out employee leave balances. Additionally, in future labor negotiations, the city should explore the possibility of eliminating or reducing voluntary leave balance cash-outs by employees, and eliminate sick leave cash-outs altogether.

6. To reduce costs, the city should consider eliminating its current resident prescription drug benefit program and replacing it with the prescription discount card program offered by the League of California Cities that would provide discounts on prescriptions to residents at no cost to the city.

7. If the city chooses not to participate in the prescription discount card program offered by the League of California Cities, it should at least take the following step related to its current prescription drug benefit program: Align its prescription drug benefit program with its established purpose--to treat conditions proven to be caused or worsened by the city's mining activities--and limit the availability of benefits to only those medications approved for the treatment of such conditions.

8. If the city chooses not to participate in the prescription discount card program offered by the League of California Cities, it should at least reduce the cost of its current prescription drug benefit program by enacting limits--similar to those in its resident vision benefits--on the number or dollar amount of prescriptions an individual can receive each year.

9. To reduce the costs of its resident prescription drug benefit program, the city council should follow the recommendations of its consultant by approving the following: align copayments by increasing those paid by residents 50 years of age and older to the same level as those paid by residents who are 49 years or younger.

10. To reduce the costs of its resident prescription drug benefit program, the city council should follow the recommendations of its consultant by approving the following: implement coordination of benefits provisions, where applicable, to designate the city as a secondary payer to residents' primary insurance coverage.

11. To eliminate the need for police officer overtime, the city should evaluate the possibility of contracting for police services with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department or another law enforcement agency as an alternative to operating its own police department.

13. While the city is considering recommendation #11, and if it should choose not to contract for police services, it should promote public safety and equity among its police officers by implementing a rotational order for scheduled overtime to prevent some officers from working excessive shifts.

16. The Housing Authority should consider options to provide low-income housing opportunities to more people. Additionally, if the Housing Authority intends to continue providing low-income housing opportunities in the future, the city should examine the available funding mechanisms to continue providing low-income housing before it exhausts its Housing Authority Fund balance.

17. To ensure that all residents have an equal chance to participate in the Housing Authority's housing programs, the city should remove the long-term residency priorities from any future housing programs.

1. To ensure that it complies with state law, Lincoln should immediately review all of its outstanding interfund loans to determine whether the borrowing funds can repay the loans according to the terms. For any loan that is from a restricted fund and that does not have the capacity to be repaid, Lincoln should develop a plan that ensures repayment within a reasonable time frame, including seeking possible alternative financing or revenue sources, such as the general fund, bonds, one-time revenue, or a tax increase, to address the obligation.

17. To ensure that it applies the correct fee credits to developers, Lincoln should develop policies and procedures by September 2019 for establishing fee credits and maintaining adequate documentation to justify modifications to fee credits, including credits it awards based on changes in fee schedules and updated development agreements.

2. To ensure that it is aware of the degree of property owners' compliance with its resale record ordinance, Novato should implement procedures that can help it monitor the sale or exchange of properties that require resale record inspections. The city should work with applicable stakeholders, such as realtors, to aid in this effort.

5. To verify that new property owners are aware of the health and safety concerns at their properties and any corrections they need to make, Novato should develop a process to ensure that it receives homeowners' cards.

34. To ensure that the resale record fees it charges is appropriate, Novato should establish a time frame to periodically determine whether the fees are commensurate with the cost of administering the resale record program. The city should ensure that it retains any documentation used to support its analyses and any subsequent adjustments to fees.

9. To ensure that it can monitor the satisfaction individuals have with the resale record program and that it has a uniform approach for resolving complaints, Pasadena should develop a formal process for tracking the complaints it receives. In addition, Pasadena should develop a formal policy that describes how staff should evaluate complaints, and it should document its activities associated with resolving complaints, such as the resolution and the rationale for the resolution. The city should also establish a designated location in its database to record this information.

40. If Pasadena subsequently requires its resale record inspectors to have International Code Council certifications, it should ensure that those staff maintain them in good standing to perform their necessary job functions.

9. Alameda County probation department should update its existing procedures to ensure that its staff are accurately recording family reunification service components within the statewide case management system.

1. If the Legislature appropriates funding from the distribution fund for mitigation grants in the future, to comply with state law, the benefit committee for Fresno County should ensure that it obtains sufficient documentation from grant applicants to demonstrate that the requested funding represents the correct proportionate share of the costs attributable to casino impacts.

2. If the Legislature appropriates funding from the distribution fund for mitigation grants in future years, Fresno County's benefit committee should revise its procedures to include specific steps to verify that grantees will place grant funds into interest-bearing accounts when awarding any mitigation grants. These steps should include requiring grantees to report the interest accrued in their quarterly reports and to substantiate those reports with bank statements or other reports of interest earned, and following up with the grantee when the grantee reports no earned interest for the period.

7. To ensure that they consistently demonstrate that candidates are hired for permanent civil service positions based on valid and job-related criteria, regardless of their sex, each county should develop policies requiring hiring managers to document the reasons why they chose the selected candidate over others from the certified eligibility list.

16. To identify their population of dually involved youth, Santa Clara County's CWS and probation agencies should designate the data system they will use for tracking the dates and results of joint assessment hearings.

22. To identify their population of dually involved youth, Santa Clara County's CWS and probation agencies should provide guidance or training to staff on recording joint assessment hearing information consistently within the designated system.

3. To best prepare to protect and care for people with access and functional needs, the county should revise its emergency plans by following the best practices that we included in our report. The county should begin implementing these practices as soon as possible. By no later than March 2020, the county should develop a schedule for completing updates to its emergency plans.

9. To ensure that the county's emergency planning efforts more fully account for people with access and functional needs in the future, the county should adopt county ordinances that require the county's emergency managers to do the following during each update to the county's emergency plans: when planning to protect people with access and functional needs, adhere to the best practices and guidance that FEMA, Cal OES, and other relevant authorities have issued; report publicly to the boards of supervisors during emergency planning about the steps they have taken to address access and functional needs; consult periodically with a committee of community groups that represent people with a variety of access and functional needs; require that representatives of the community group committees present to the board of supervisors their review of the adequacy of the emergency plans.

4. To best prepare to protect and care for people with access and functional needs, the county should revise its emergency plans by following the best practices that we included in our report. The county should begin implementing these practices as soon as possible. By no later than March 2020, the county should develop a schedule for completing updates to its emergency plans.

7. To ensure that the county maintains updated emergency plans that are consistent with current best practices, the county should adopt ordinances establishing requirements for the frequency with which the county must update its emergency plans and should set that frequency at no greater than five years.

10. To ensure that the county's emergency planning efforts more fully account for people with access and functional needs in the future, the county should adopt county ordinances that require the county's emergency managers to do the following during each update to the county's emergency plans: when planning to protect people with access and functional needs, adhere to the best practices and guidance that FEMA, Cal OES, and other relevant authorities have issued; report publicly to the boards of supervisors during emergency planning about the steps they have taken to address access and functional needs; consult periodically with a committee of community groups that represent people with a variety of access and functional needs; require that representatives of the community group committees present to the board of supervisors their review of the adequacy of the emergency plans.

7. To rectify the excessive reimbursement amounts it received for strike team assignments, the district should, by December 31, 2019, develop and implement a plan for returning to the paying agencies the excessive reimbursements it received for 2016 through 2018.

8. To rectify the excessive reimbursement amounts it received for strike team assignments, the district should, by December 31, 2019, work with Cal OES to identify the amounts of excess reimbursements the district received for 2013 through 2015 and then develop and implement a plan for returning those amounts to the paying agency.

10. To improve its financial viability and safeguard its ability to continue providing services to the Fallen Leaf Lake community, the district should, by December 31, 2019, monitor the financial risks it may face in the future, forecast their impact on its finances and budget, and plan and implement appropriate changes to its budget as necessary throughout the fiscal year.

11. To improve its financial viability and safeguard its ability to continue providing services to the Fallen Leaf Lake community, the district should, by December 31, 2019, limit the extent to which it relies on volatile revenue sources to balance its budget.

13. To improve its financial viability and safeguard its ability to continue providing services to the Fallen Leaf Lake community, the district should, by December 31, 2019, develop a five-year forecast of estimated revenues and expenditures and a plan to guide its decisions and actions in the event of fluctuations.

15. To ensure that it is fulfilling requests for alternate media services from students with disabilities in a timely manner, by June 2018, De Anza should establish procedures for monitoring its timeliness in responding to such requests so that it can periodically review its performance in completing the requests. Specifically, it should record and track sufficient information to be able to review how long it takes to complete requests. Additionally, De Anza should calculate the number of days it takes to complete requests, and periodically evaluate its performance against its time-frame goals. Further, to evaluate its performance, De Anza should establish a time-frame goal for completing alternate media requests.

16. To ensure that it promptly addresses any complaints it receives related to web accessibility and alternate media requests, De Anza should follow its new procedures for tracking and reviewing complaints related to accessibility.

17. To ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to instructional materials, by June 2018, De Anza should develop procedures to monitor and periodically review the accessibility of instructional materials. For example, De Anza could develop an accessibility checklist for instructors to complete when developing or selecting instructional materials, from which the college could periodically review a sample of course content to ensure that instructors completed the checklist and that the instructional materials comply with accessibility standards.

18. To ensure that its website complies with accessibility standards, by June 2018, De Anza should develop procedures to monitor website accessibility and incorporate steps to prevent instructors from publishing inaccessible content on the college's website. These procedures should include a tracking mechanism to demonstrate how many accessibility errors the college identifies and how long it takes to fix those errors.

19. To ensure that all instructors are aware of the accessibility standards for instructional materials, De Anza should include in its next collective bargaining negotiations a requirement for instructors to periodically attend accessibility trainings.

21. To increase the transparency of its annual review process, by June 2018, De Anza should establish procedures requiring its departments to document attendees, input received, and agreements reached during meetings to consider instructional technology equipment requests.

1. To ensure that its ALPR policy contains all of the required elements as specified in state law, by August 2020, Fresno should review its policy and draft or revise it as necessary. Also by August 2020, Fresno should post its revised policy on its website in accordance with state law.

3. To protect ALPR data to the appropriate standard, by August 2020 Fresno should perform an assessment of its ALPR system data-security features, and make adjustments to its system configuration where necessary to comply with CJIS policy best practices based on that assessment.

9. To ensure that ALPR system access is limited to agency staff who have a need and a right to use ALPR data, by April 2020 Fresno should review all user accounts and deactivate accounts for separated employees, inactive users, and others as necessary.

9. To ensure that their teachers and staff have the information necessary to respond consistently, promptly, and appropriately to reduce suicide risk, the six LEAs we reviewed should revise their policies by March 2021 to comply with state law and incorporate the best practices in Education's model policy.

15. To ensure that their teachers and staff have the knowledge necessary to identify and assist students at risk of self-harm and suicide, the six LEAs we reviewed should do the following:

- Revise their suicide prevention training materials by June 2021 to align with state law and incorporate the best practices in Education's model policy.

-LEAs that provide suicide prevention training should conduct it at the beginning of the school year.

21. To improve their students' access to mental health professionals, Kern High School District, Ukiah Unified, Gateway Charter, Redwoods Charter, and Heartland Charter should coordinate with their respective counties to request MHSA funding to employ additional school counselors, school nurses, school social workers, and school psychologists.

6. To determine the effectiveness of its use of JJCPA funds, Kern should include in its year-end reports to Community Corrections descriptions or analyses of how its JJCPA-funded programs influenced its juvenile justice trends, as required by law.

22. To improve their students' access to mental health professionals, Kern High School District, Ukiah Unified, Gateway Charter, Redwoods Charter, and Heartland Charter should coordinate with their respective counties to request MHSA funding to employ additional school counselors, school nurses, school social workers, and school psychologists.

14. To better understand the effectiveness of the mental health services in its special education program, Long Beach should use the six performance indicators we identified to perform analysis annually on the subset of students receiving mental health services.

6. To ensure that it connects patients who have been placed on multiple short-term holds to appropriate ongoing treatment, Los Angeles should, by no later than August 2021, adopt a systematic approach to identifying such individuals, obtaining available mental health history information about these individuals, and connecting these individuals to services that support their ongoing mental health.

8. To ensure that conservatorships do not terminate because of the absence of testimony from doctors, Los Angeles should immediately implement a comprehensive solution to this problem, such as using its own staff as expert witnesses when individuals' treating physicians are unable to testify. In addition, by no later than August 2021, it should develop a revised approach to scheduling conservatorship hearings and trials so that it significantly reduces the rate at which doctors' failures to testify result in terminated conservatorships.

6. To ensure that its staff appropriately use SDM assessments to identify safety threats and risks, the department should incorporate SDM instructions into its policies and procedures by July 2019 and provide mandatory annual SDM training for applicable staff, supervisors, and other members of management by May 2020.

1. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should direct Montebello to submit a corrective action plan to address the issues identified in this report including balancing its budget, amending and adhering to its hiring procedures, and establishing adequate safeguards to ensure that policies related to bond proceeds, conflicts of interest, and the approval of expenditures are implemented and followed.

2. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should assist Montebello in developing a plan to justify its workforce size and cost in terms of its current and projected enrollment, including evaluating the necessity of current staff levels and personnel costs.

3. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should evaluate the necessity of executive positions and adjust executives' salaries based on an analysis of the number and cost of executives in comparable districts.

4. To ensure that Montebello takes the steps necessary to prevent state intervention and regain its positive financial certification, the county superintendent should ensure that Montebello implements all of the recommendations detailed in the report.

11. To adequately assess the effectiveness of its programs at reducing juvenile crime and delinquency, Los Angeles should collect data on all participants in each JJCPA program and for each service it provides.

15. To accurately assess the effectiveness of its programs, Los Angeles should determine how to accurately identify in its case management system the JJCPA programs and services in which each individual participates or should enhance its system to provide this capability.

1. To ensure that its CCW licensing decisions align with its CCW policy, Los Angeles should only issue licenses to applicants after collecting documentation of specific, personal threats against the applicants so as to satisfy its definition of good cause. If Los Angeles believes that its public licensing policy does not include all acceptable good causes for a CCW license, then by March 2018 it should revise that policy and publish the new policy on its website. It should then immediately begin processing applications according to that revised policy.

2. To ensure that it only issues licenses to individuals after receiving evidence of residency, firearms training, and good moral character that aligns with its policy, Los Angeles should only issue licenses after verifying that it has received this evidence. To avoid overlooking required evidence, Los Angeles should create procedures by March 2018 for its staff to follow to ensure that each CCW file contains the evidence its policy requires before issuing the license.

10. To ensure that it is only charging fees that state law allows, Los Angeles should immediately cease charging applicants fees in addition to its license processing fee. Los Angeles should reimburse applicants who paid the unallowable fees. Further, if Los Angeles believes its license fee does not recover its entire cost of processing an initial application, it should complete a cost study and, if appropriate, revise its fee according to the results of that study and the maximum allowed fees under state law.

15. To ensure that its ALPR policy contains all of the required elements as specified in state law, by August 2020, Los Angeles should review its policy and draft or revise it as necessary. Also by August 2020, Los Angeles should post its revised policy on its website in accordance with state law.

16. To protect ALPR data to the appropriate standard, by August 2020, Los Angeles should identify the types of data in its ALPR system and, as Los Angeles reviews or drafts its ALPR policy, ensure that it clarifies the types of information its officers may upload into its ALPR system, such as, but not limited to, information obtained through CLETS.

17. To protect ALPR data to the appropriate standard, by August 2020, Los Angeles should perform an assessment of its ALPR system data-security features, and make adjustments to its system configuration where necessary to comply with CJIS policy best practices based on that assessment.

21. To ensure that ALPR system access is limited to agency staff who have a need and a right to use ALPR data, by April 2020, Los Angeles should review all user accounts and deactivate accounts for separated employees, inactive users, and others as necessary.

25. To enable auditing of user access to and user queries of ALPR images, Los Angeles should ensure that its ALPR policy makes clear how frequently Los Angeles will audit its ALPR system, who will perform that audit, who will review and approve the audit results, and how long Los Angeles will retain the audit documents. Los Angeles should have in place by February 2021 an audit plan that describes its audit methodology, including, but not limited to, risk areas that will be audited, sampling, documentation, and resolution of findings.

26. To enable auditing of user access to and user queries of ALPR images, by June 2021, Los Angeles should implement its audit plan and complete its first audit.

31. To ensure that state adult education funds are used in the most efficient and effective manner, the consortium should, within one year, complete an assessment of Montebello's ability to meet the requirements of its adult education plan to determine whether its use of state funds has been effective. If Montebello is found to be consistently ineffective, the consortium should immediately recalculate the adult program's fund allocation for the future.

32. To ensure that state adult education funds are used in the most efficient and effective manner, the consortium should, within one year, develop policies and procedures to ensure the proper collection and reporting of enrollment, attendance, and expenditure data by consortium members. Periodically review enrollment, attendance, and expenditure data to ensure their accuracy.

18. Los Angeles should correct its pollutant control plan where it miscalculated two pollutant limits.

24. To ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to instructional materials, by June 2018, American River should develop procedures to monitor and periodically review the accessibility of instructional materials. For example, American River could develop an accessibility checklist for instructors to complete when developing or selecting instructional materials, from which the college could periodically review a sample of course content to ensure that instructors completed the checklist and that the instructional materials comply with accessibility standards.

25. To ensure that its website complies with accessibility standards, by June 2018, American River should develop procedures to monitor website accessibility and incorporate steps to prevent instructors from publishing inaccessible content on the college's website. These procedures should include a tracking mechanism to demonstrate how many accessibility errors the college identifies and how long it takes to fix those errors.

26. To ensure that all instructors are aware of the accessibility standards for instructional materials, American River should include in its next collective bargaining negotiations a requirement for instructors to periodically attend accessibility trainings.

28. To ensure that it fully implements its technology master plan, by June 2018, American River should establish an implementation plan with detailed steps for achieving the goals in its technology master plan that it has not yet accomplished. Further, it should develop an implementation plan in conjunction with the development of its future technology master plan.

29. To increase the transparency of its annual review processes, by June 2018, American River should establish procedures requiring its departments to document attendees, input received, and agreements reached during meetings to consider instructional technology equipment requests.

27. To ensure that its ALPR policy contains all of the required elements as specified in state law, by August 2020, Marin should review its policy and draft or revise it as necessary. Also by August 2020, Marin should post its revised policy on its website in accordance with state law.

37. To ensure that ALPR system access is limited to agency staff who have a need and a right to use ALPR data, by August 2020, Marin should develop and implement procedures for granting and managing user accounts that include, but are not limited to, requiring that supervisors must approve accounts for users, providing training to users before granting accounts, suspending users after defined periods of inactivity, and requiring regular refresher training for active users and training for users before reactivating previously inactive accounts. Marin should also ensure that it has procedures in place to deactivate an account immediately for an account holder who separates from the agency or who no longer needs a user account.

39. To enable auditing of user access to and user queries of ALPR images, Marin should ensure that its ALPR policy makes clear how frequently Marin will audit its ALPR system, who will perform that audit, who will review and approve the audit results, and how long Marin will retain the audit documents. Marin should have in place by February 2021 an audit plan that describes its audit methodology, including, but not limited to, risk areas that will be audited, sampling, documentation, and resolution of findings.

40. To enable auditing of user access to and user queries of ALPR images, by June 2021, Marin should implement its audit plan and complete its first audit.

5. To improve its current financial condition and ensure future viability, Montebello should, within 60 days, revise its fiscal stabilization plan and make the necessary cuts to fund its ongoing commitments.

6. To improve its current financial condition and ensure future viability, Montebello should create a robust budgeting process within 90 days using best practices of the Government Finance Officers Association to ensure Montebello's ability to meet its priorities while maintaining the required level of reserves that buffers the district from drastic cuts in times of economic instability.

7. To improve its current financial condition and ensure future viability, Montebello should, within 90 days, implement an effective budget monitoring process with regular budget-to-actual comparisons. This process should include safeguards against spending in excess of budgeted expenditures and require advance board approval of such spending before it occurs. For example, Montebello should require that the budget manager perform monthly reviews of budget-to-actual figures and provide detailed explanations to the board for any variances.

8. To ensure that Montebello hires the most qualified executive and management staff, Montebello should immediately adhere to its policies for hiring classified employees, including screening candidates to ensure that they meet the minimum qualifications. Montebello should also hold provisional employees to the same standards for minimum
qualifications as its policy requires.

9. To ensure that Montebello hires qualified classified employees, the personnel commission should, within 90 days, revise its policies to require the classified director to provide it with the education and work experience of any candidates on eligibility lists for high-ranking positions. It should also require the director of the personnel commission—the classified director—to provide it with a list of all provisional appointments, including information on how those employees meet the minimum qualifications.

10. To ensure that it does not violate state law, Montebello should immediately adhere to its policies and ensure that provisional employees do not work more than the legal maximum number of days of service.

12. In order to rebuild trust with its community, Montebello should adhere to its policies for hiring certificated personnel and fill any vacant positions for executives through a competitive hiring process, including advertising the positions, screening to ensure that minimum qualifications are met, and interviewing to ensure that it hires and retains the most qualified and talented leaders.

13. To ensure that Montebello creates employee positions only when necessary, it should establish a policy within 30 days that requires a justification for why the district is creating a position. Additionally, in order to maintain transparency when creating new positions, Montebello should immediately begin to document its justifications.

14. To ensure that Montebello hires qualified certificated and classified employees, within 90 days the board should revise its policies to require the superintendent or his or her designee to provide information to the board about recruitments for high-ranking employees. The board should consider, at a minimum, the following information when approving appointments:
- The number of initial applicants.
- The number of candidates who passed the screening and interviewing steps.
- The education and work experience of the final candidate recommended by the superintendent or designee.

15. To ensure that Montebello is making hiring decisions free of bias or favoritism, within 90 days it should strengthen its hiring policies related to nepotism and conflicts of interest for classified and certificated personnel to include the following: establishing restrictions on immediate family members being involved in the screening and interviewing processes and definitions of what types of personal relationships fall under the nepotism policy, which work relationships the nepotism policy applies to, and what factors to consider when evaluating the potential impact of a personal relationship.

24. To ensure that Montebello spends its funds for allowable and reasonable purposes, it should implement an inventory tracking system that allows it to know where its equipment is located. Montebello should also periodically review its inventory listing to ensure that equipment is being properly used.

44. To better ensure effective oversight of its charter schools' finances, New Jerusalem should place a district representative as a nonvoting member on each charter school's governing board.

32. To ensure that its campuses provide the necessary resources and information to students about campus safety, Peralta should by December 2018, develop all required policies related to campus safety in compliance with the Education Code.

6. To address its current financial problems, Sacramento Unified should do the following:

By March 2020, adopt a detailed plan to resolve its fiscal crisis. The plan should estimate savings under multiple scenarios and include an analysis that quantifies the impact of reductions the district can make to ongoing expenditures. Specifically, Sacramento Unified should consider the impact of possible salary adjustments for employees in different bargaining units and include the impact those salary adjustments would have on postemployment benefits, such as pensions. It should also use the most recently available data to estimate net savings from modifying the health care benefits it provides to employees, as well as the impact those modifications would have on the total compensation of the employees. Finally, it should calculate the impact of possible changes to district and employee contributions to fund future retiree health benefits. The district should use the plan it develops as the basis for its discussions of potential solutions with its teachers union.

7. To address its current financial problems, Sacramento Unified should do the following:

Revise its multiyear projections and update them at least quarterly until it has taken action that would cause it to no longer project insolvency. It should disclose these projections to the board.

8. To address its current financial problems, Sacramento Unified should do the following:

The district should adopt and disclose publicly a multiyear projection methodology. This methodology should disclose the assumptions and rationale used to estimate changes in salaries, benefits, contributions, and LCFF revenue—including changes in enrollment and the source and reliability of the data used to make these projections.

9. To address its current financial problems, Sacramento Unified should do the following:

Before it imposes an agreement on its teachers union or accepts state assistance, the district should publicly disclose the likely effects that such actions will have on the district's students, faculty, and the community, and its plans to address these effects.

10. To prevent a similar fiscal crisis in the future, Sacramento Unified should do the following by July 2020:

Have the board adopt a budget methodology, including guidance on the use of one-time funds, the use and maintenance of district reserves, and the maintenance of a balanced budget. The methodology should use the Government Finance Officers Association's best practices as a guide and should address at least the following areas:

Including administrators from different divisions of Sacramento Unified into the budget development process to help ensure the accuracy of projections.

Establishing criteria and measures for success in the budget process, such as whether budget decisions were made with adequate input and deliberation and whether the budget was balanced without using reserves or one-time revenues for ongoing expenditures.

Developing and adhering to a multiyear funding budget plan, with the goal of realigning resources where necessary to fund ongoing expenses with ongoing revenue.

Conducting an analysis of variances in budgeted and actual revenues and expenditures at each interim reporting period. Sacramento Unified should then use this information to inform its estimates for the upcoming fiscal year's budget.

11. To prevent a similar fiscal crisis in the future, Sacramento Unified should do the following by July 2020:

Develop a long-term funding plan to address its retiree health benefits liability. The plan should include appropriate action necessary to ensure the district will be able to meet its obligations to its employees and retirees.

12. To prevent a similar fiscal crisis in the future, Sacramento Unified should do the following by July 2020:

Adopt a policy that guides staff on steps they should take to ensure that special education expenditures are cost-effective. The policy should include consideration of options for offering services, including those provided by district staff or by contracted providers.

14. To prevent a similar fiscal crisis in the future, Sacramento Unified should do the following by July 2020:

Develop and adopt a succession plan that ensures that it has staff who have the training and knowledge necessary to assume critical roles in the case of turnover.

15. To prevent a similar fiscal crisis in the future, Sacramento Unified should do the following by July 2020:

Develop effective employee orientation programs, including mentorship, to allow incoming leaders to better adapt to the organization's structure and culture.

3. To ensure that Sacramento Unified takes the steps necessary to address its fiscal crisis, the county office superintendent should do the following:

Direct Sacramento Unified to submit a corrective action plan by March 2020 that consolidates the district's plans to resolve its fiscal crisis.

4. To ensure that Sacramento Unified takes the steps necessary to address its fiscal crisis, the county office superintendent should do the following:

Ensure that Sacramento Unified addresses the issues identified in this report, including its executive management turnover and lack of policies guiding its budget process.

5. To ensure that Sacramento Unified takes the steps necessary to address its fiscal crisis, the county office superintendent should do the following:

Ensure that Sacramento Unified implements all of the recommendations detailed below.

43. To protect ALPR data to the appropriate standard, by August 2020, Sacramento should perform an assessment of its ALPR system data-security features, and make adjustments to its system configuration where necessary to comply with CJIS policy best practices based on that assessment.

44. To ensure that the agreement with its cloud vendor offers the strongest possible data protections, by August 2020, Sacramento should enter into a new contract with Vigilant that contains the contract provisions recommended in CJIS policy.

45. To ensure that ALPR images are being shared appropriately, by April 2020, Sacramento should review the entities with which it currently shares images, determine the appropriateness of this sharing, and take all necessary steps to suspend those sharing relationships deemed inappropriate or unnecessary.

51. To ensure that ALPR system access is limited to agency staff who have a need and a right to use ALPR data, by August 2020, Sacramento should develop and implement procedures for granting and managing user accounts that include, but are not limited to, requiring that supervisors must approve accounts for users, providing training to users before granting accounts, suspending users after defined periods of inactivity, and requiring regular refresher training for active users and training for users before reactivating previously inactive accounts. Sacramento should also ensure that it has procedures in place to deactivate an account immediately for an account holder who separates from the agency or who no longer needs a user account.

52. To enable auditing of user access to and user queries of ALPR images, by April 2020, Sacramento should assess the information its ALPR system captures when users access it to ensure that the system's logs are complete and accurate and that the logs form a reasonable basis for conducting necessary, periodic audits.

54. To enable auditing of user access to and user queries of ALPR images, by June 2021, Sacramento should implement its audit plan and complete its first audit.

3. To ensure that staff are gathering consistent evidence from applicants to demonstrate residency, good moral character, and firearms training and are including which requirement applicants did not meet in its denial letters, by March 2018 Sacramento should create formal CCW processing procedures and train its staff to follow these procedures. These procedures should require staff to gather and evaluate the information the department believes is required to demonstrate that each of the criteria for a CCW license has been met, and they should also require staff to include which requirement applicants did not meet in its denial letters.

4. To ensure that staff are following its newly established procedures and to identify any need for additional guidance, by March 2018 Sacramento should establish a review process wherein it regularly reviews a selection of license files and denied applications to determine whether its staff are collecting sufficient and consistent documentation in accordance with its policies and are appropriately including which requirement applicants did not meet in its denial letters.

7. To ensure that it provides all required information to Justice, Sacramento should immediately inform Justice when it revokes a CCW license, including when it receives a prohibition notice from Justice.

11. To ensure that it is maximizing allowable revenue from the CCW program and reducing its program deficits, Sacramento should perform a cost study of its initial application processing and, on completion of the study, immediately increase its CCW license fees and begin charging the maximum amounts allowable under state law.

10. To comply with federal law and best practices, San Bernardino should, before academic year 2020-21, ensure that school staff who provide services to youth experiencing homelessness receive training as federal law requires. Further, as set forth in best practices, the LEA should provide this training at least annually, and the training should include the definition of homelessness, signs of homelessness, the impact of homelessness on youth, and the steps an LEA should take once school staff has identified a youth as possibly experiencing homelessness.

16. To comply with federal law and best practices, San Bernardino should, before academic year 2020-21, distribute information about the educational rights of youth experiencing homelessness in public places, including schools, shelters, public libraries, and food pantries frequented by families of such youth, as federal law requires. Further, to mitigate families' and youth's hesitance to disclosing their living situation the LEA should include the protections set forth in federal and state laws in the information it distributes.

5. To ensure that the permit fees it charges are sufficient to pay for its permitting program, the San Diego Air District should, by December 2020, monitor the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on San Diego County's economy and, when economic conditions allow, propose to the district board that it increase fees annually by the maximum percentage allowed until the district's revenue from permit fees is equal to the full cost of the permitting program.

6. To ensure that it is responsive to its stakeholders and encourages public participation in the creation of its regulatory and permitting policies, the San Diego Air District should create and implement a public participation plan by January 2021 that includes both public outreach and public engagement activities.

8. Because the new district board will include additional stakeholders who represent some of the interests that the advisory committee was intended to represent, the district board should determine whether the advisory committee is still necessary. If the district board determines that the advisory committee is still necessary, it should immediately publicize the vacancies on the advisory committee on its website and in the monthly and annual county reports of vacancies on boards, commissions, and committees, and actively seek nominations to fill these positions.

9. Because the new district board will include additional stakeholders who represent some of the interests that the advisory committee was intended to represent, the district board should determine whether the advisory committee is still necessary. If the district board determines that the advisory committee is still necessary, it should ensure that the district's legal counsel monitors the advisory committee meetings beginning immediately, and advises the committee when it does not comply with state public meeting requirements.

12. To ensure that it effectively manages its complaint investigation process and provides accurate information to the public regarding the complaints it receives, the San Diego Air District should, by June 2021, establish a process for validating the accuracy of the data it previously entered into its database.

5. To ensure that its staff appropriately renew CCW licenses, by March 2018 San Diego should establish a routine supervisory review of a selection of renewed licenses.

6. To ensure that it consistently obtains sufficient evidence to demonstrate that an applicant satisfies its requirements for a license, by March 2018 San Diego should develop guidance and train its staff on what good cause documentation staff should request from applicants. Further, it should train its staff regarding the expected documents for residency and training.

8. To ensure that it follows state law's requirements for revoking licenses, San Diego should immediately revoke CCW licenses and should then inform Justice that it has revoked licenses whenever license holders become prohibited persons. Additionally, San Diego should notify Justice when it suspends a license or a license is surrendered.

12. To ensure that it maximizes allowable revenue from its CCW program, San Diego should immediately pursue increasing its initial, renewal, and amendment fees to the maximum amounts allowable under state law.

10. To ensure that it maximizes the efficiency and effectiveness of its enforcement and permitting programs, the commission should by January 2020 develop guidance that enumerates the violation types that the commissioners deem worthy of swift enforcement action, those that staff can defer for a specified amount of time, and those that do not warrant enforcement action or that can be resolved through fines.

12. To ensure that it maximizes the efficiency and effectiveness of its enforcement and permitting programs, the commission should by January 2020 create a penalty calculation worksheet. The commission should require the worksheet's use for all enforcement actions that will result in fines or penalties, and it should create formal policies, procedures, and criteria to provide staff with guidance on applying the worksheet.

16. To ensure that it maximizes the efficiency and effectiveness of its enforcement and permitting programs, the commission should by January 2020 appoint a new citizens' advisory committee as required by law and determine a schedule for the committee to conduct regular meetings.

17. To ensure that it uses the abatement fund for the physical cleanup of the Bay, the commission should create a policy by January 2020 identifying the minimum amounts it will disburse and prioritizing the projects that it will support through disbursements to the appropriate entities.

18. To build on prior recommendations and ensure that it maximizes the effectiveness of its enforcement program, the commission should by January 2021 conduct a workforce study of all its permit and regulatory activities and determine whether it requires additional staff, including supervisors, to support its mission.

19. To build on prior recommendations and ensure that it maximizes the effectiveness of its enforcement program, the commission should by January 2021 implement a permit compliance position to support the efforts of enforcement staff and the implementation of process changes. If necessary, it should seek additional funding for such a position.

20. To build on prior recommendations and ensure that it maximizes the effectiveness of its enforcement program, the commission should by January 2021 update its existing database or create a new database to ensure that it can identify and track individual violations within each case, including the date staff initiate the standardized fines process for each violation. As part of this process, the commission should review its database and update it as necessary to ensure that it includes all necessary and accurate information, specifically whether staff initiated the standardized fines process for open case files and for those case files closed within the past five years.

22. To ensure consistency in its enforcement program, the commission should by January 2021 create and implement regulations that define substantial harm, provide explicit criteria for calculating the number of violations present in individual enforcement cases, and specify a process to handle any necessary exceptions to the criteria.

23. To ensure consistency in its enforcement program, the commission should by January 2021 create and implement regulations to allow it to use limited monetary fines to resolve selected minor violations that do not involve substantial harm to the Bay.

24. To ensure consistency in its enforcement program, the commission should by January 2021 update its regulations on permit issuance to offer greater clarity on the types of projects for which staff may issue permits without commissioners' hearings.

7. To ensure that it connects patients who have been placed on multiple short-term holds to appropriate ongoing treatment, San Francisco should, by no later than August 2021, adopt a systematic approach to identifying such individuals, obtaining available mental health history information about these individuals, and connecting these individuals to services that support their ongoing mental health.

17. To ensure that their teachers and staff have the knowledge necessary to identify and assist students at risk of self-harm and suicide, the six LEAs we reviewed should do the following:

- Revise their suicide prevention training materials by June 2021 to align with state law and incorporate the best practices in Education's model policy.

-LEAs that provide suicide prevention training should conduct it at the beginning of the school year.

1. To ensure that the district can demonstrate that its decisions for selecting contractors are justified and are in the best interest of the district's residents, by April 2019 the district should establish formal procedures designed to ensure that it follows a rigorous and appropriate evaluation and contract awarding process.

2. To ensure that the district pays only reasonable and appropriate contract administrative costs, before the district signs any future management contract, it should prepare estimates of the costs for all proposed contract terms related to compensation.

8. To ensure that it uses bond proceeds for allowable purposes and improves its consistency and accountability in processing payments from bond proceeds, by April 2019 the district should formalize and document policies and procedures for verifying that it uses bond proceeds for allowable purposes and for approving expenditures paid from general obligation bond proceeds.

23. To improve their students' access to mental health professionals, Kern High School District, Ukiah Unified, Gateway Charter, Redwoods Charter, and Heartland Charter should coordinate with their respective counties to request MHSA funding to employ additional school counselors, school nurses, school social workers, and school psychologists.