2.

(ACTION) Review and approval of Minutes of June 19, 2006 meeting.

Upon motion, 2^nd, the minutes were approved as written.

(public comment)

There were none.

3.

(Public Comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Finance Committee of the Juvenile Probation Commission)

There was no public in attendance at this time.

4.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Review of the Dept’s fiscal operations, with recap of expenditures, budget including status of contracts, trends in expenses, audits of all financial processes.

M. Lui referred to the monthly expense report. He noted the June amounts are not final. It will be by August that final numbers will be reached. Salary numbers are final, everything else subject to change.

Comm. Beijen asked about the high OT in juvenile hall. M. Lui said it was similar to May, with 3 pay periods.  In comparison it would be about $12k per pay period, which is less than in May, about $13k per pay period.   He said that for June, the juvenile hall OT was about $45k per pay period (3 pay periods), and in May it was roughly $40k per pay period.  He said the counts (population) were higher. He also said during summer months staff take vacations.  This is a pattern you might see. (asked if he had a record of vacations taken, he said no).

There was still confusion around the reasons for this amount. The Committee was not satisfied with the lack of analysis behind the figures. Comm. Beijen asked for a deeper analysis of OT.

There is a reverse relationship between temp salary levels and OT.   Avg. temp salaries in June over May remained the same; OT just went up. 

Asked about LCR OT, Lui said that 8321 counselors are being used as acting supervisors (8323), so their positions are being backfilled. 

In reference to the telephone charges Com Beijen asked if M. Lui had confirmed that the May figure was due to a two-month charge, as he had agreed to do last time. Lui reported he hadn’t done it yet. Comm. Beijen asked that June be looked at also.

Comm. Fetico asked about the equipment amount. M Lui the $65k was for new computers for POs and Administration.

Asked about the storage of items purchased for the new juvenile hall facility.  Lui said equipment purchased for the new hall (file cabinets, chairs, desks, furniture) is being stored in the old courtroom downstairs.  The Courts will be taking back that room in Sept so those things will be moved to another storage area.  The $65k was used to buy new computers to replace aging computers for most of the POs and some administration.

Comm. Beijen commented that most of the items in the expense sheet showed the dept came within budget, with the exception of salaries.

WC will be over budget (est. $1.1 mil) by $50-60k or more.

There was a short discussion about the inability to recover all the expenditures (final line item on sheet). Some of those amounts are $194K from DCYF, $30K from DPH, $87K “add-back” from MOCJ, $8K from the courts. About $0.5 mil from TANF.

Comm. Fetico asked about the status of the contracts.  M. Lui said as of today they were still being negotiated and will take at least a month to complete. 

In response to the public comments, Comm. Beijen suggested that the concerns and letters be forwarded to the Chief to deal with.

(public comment)

Vicki Rega, Turning Heads inquired about the staffing of LCR.  She said there were two counselors on the LCR budget who were working up in YGC (Fiero and McKnight) M Lui had no answer. He will look into that.                                           

Omar Khalif, Ombudsman, commented that it was incomprehensible that his contract, which was not competed for this year, was still not completed, despite his having done all his paperwork by end of May.  He said this has happened every year since he took on the contract. This is the worst experience to date. 

Vicki Rega commented that the entire process was and is confusing.  Their original contract was for $52K, to which they supplemented by their own fundraising efforts. They have done this consistently over the years, always offering more services than the contract amount given them by the Dept. They have been very effective with their programs at LCR.

This year they don’t know if the Dept is changing course and dropping them, or just not giving them much (she mentioned $8K), and could not tell whether they should be going forward to develop their programs or not.  The Dept has not been helpful in clearing up this confusion.

5.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION). Cell phone use policy and car use logs.

Comm. Fetico asked about the car usage and M. Lui provided an example of a log sheet being used by Private Placement POs.  It appeared incomplete, not all information entered in each case of usage.

The Committee commented that it would be more useful to have beginning and ending odometer readings so that actual usage could be seen.  This was the only example of logs being used to track auto usage.

Re: cell phones, Comm. Fetico said the document provided was inadequate and did not respond to his request.  M. Lui said there were concerns for privacy.  He also said he doesn’t get actual records of calls made (as requested by Comm. Fetico).  He said he does a review of the bills and checks to make sure there is no abuse of the phones.

The Committee pointed out one phone number that had bills in the two and three hundred dollar amounts for the past 3 months.  M Lui said this was the transportation officer, who used to have an unlimited call program (at $99/mo) but was abusing it, so they switched it to a 700-min/month program.  This obviously is above that limit.  He did not know if the programs had free mobile-to-mobile conditions.

M. Lui said that sometimes POs go out of the area and have to use the mobile phones and accumulate roaming and long distance charges because they don’t have a “national” calling plan.

Comm. Beijen said that if bad habits are still being followed, they need to be broken.

Comm. Fetico said he wants to see even more reduction in the costs of cell phones, his target being 7-8 for the entire Dept.

Comm. Fetico asked M. Lui to call a particular cell phone number.  He agreed to look into it.

(public comment)

Vicki Rega asked how do you “abuse” an unlimited call mobile program?  (no answer given. M Lui said he can’t answer during public comment)

6.

(ACTION) Request for future agenda items,  Adjournment

There were no requests.  There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:29pm