State audit approved for 3 counties’ sheriff’s spending

After a contentious hearing, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approved an audit of how three large sheriff’s departments have been spending realignment funds.

Under that policy, thousands of inmates were moved out of overcrowded prisons and into 110 long-term jails around the state. The request from Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager, D-Los Angeles, asked the State Auditor to look into how these funds were used by sheriffs in Alameda, Fresno and Los Angeles counties.

Kamlager testified her request was prompted by recent news reports about how these departments were spending AB 109 realignment funds and by a spate of recent jailhouse deaths.

“Since the passage of prison realignment legislation in 2011, California has sent more than $8 billion to counties to cover the cost of moving convicts from prisons to jails, Kamlager told the committee on Wednesday.

She added, “Mismanagement of funds by sheriff’s departments have become far too frequent reads in articles in newspapers and also far too frequent in jails across the state.”

But Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims testified she only heard about the request a week before and had never been given an opportunity to answer any of the questions contained in the audit request.

“Had any of these questions been asked of me I certainly would have answered,” Mims testified.

Two Republican legislators from Fresno — Sen. Andreas Borgeas and Assemblyman Jim Patterson — also said they were blindsided and asked the committee to delay the request.

Borgeas held up a copy of a standard audit request form used by the committee and cited the portion that said, “Explain the steps you have taken to address the topic of the audit.” He also noted the Fresno County Board of Supervisors paid Brown Armstrong Accountancy Corp. to conduct an audit of the county’s use of realignment funds.

When asked, Mims said no one from the Legislature requested a copy from her office.

Borgeas also argued the audit was “not ripe” and cited the cost. His comments came minutes after State Auditor Elaine Howle testified the requested audit would cost $350,000, require 2,600 hours of work and take six months.

“We have a situation here where we just found out about this audit and some of the most pressing and clear-cut opportunities to provide information were not pursued, even in our own committee process,” Borgeas said. “My recommendation is that the requesting party do the due diligence and get the information from these three counties.”

The audit request later passed on a 10-2 vote as Assemblyman Randy Voepel, R-Santee, agreed with nine Democrats. Borgeas and Patterson voted no while two other Republicans abstained.

Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern testified his office bills for any extra prisoners they are forced to house under the policy and any decision-making role for sheriffs in realignment is overblown.

“The sheriff’s office simply requests the funds,” Ahern said. “In our case 50% of the funds go out to community-based organizations to facilitate reentry.”

Kamlager shot back that the Board of State and Community Corrections displays county-level realignment plans on its website, and some counties have not updated these plans since 2011. She said her audit request focused on counties that have had “numerous” jailhouse deaths and those where there has been a notable “lack of transparency.”

Mark-Anthony Clayton-Johnson, an organizer with Justice LA, whom Kamlager invited to testify at the hearing in support of her audit request, said Los Angeles County checks both boxes.

“In Los Angeles County, we certainly have had numerous attempts by our county Board of Supervisors to get information from our sheriff’s department, including information about the cause of deaths that have happened inside the county jails,” Clayton-Johnson said.

Kamlager’s Jan. 13 request letter to the committee said she wanted to get better data on the jail population and spending before and after realignment, and if they are spending all of the funds allotted, the committee also wants the departments to provide a breakdown of how they spent funds.

The letter stated Fresno County jails have had 47 deaths since the passage of realignment, and these “deaths outnumber those in many larger jail systems.” Alameda, meanwhile, had 45 deaths at the Santa Rita jail between 2014 and 2019, “the highest death rate in the Bay Area.”

The letter also cited spending, stating Alameda has seen a huge rise in spending even while its jail population has fallen. In October, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to partially freeze nearly $144 million of Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s budget until he addressed a $63 million budget shortfall.