Holes seen in audit of inmate fund presented to San Joaquin supervisors

Auditors hired by San Joaquin County were not on trial Tuesday, but they were in the hot seat when they presented an audit of the Inmate Welfare Fund, run by the Sheriff's Department for the benefit of prisoners.

Earnings from the Community Corps, a crew of nonviolent inmates who clean state and county roads, among other jobs, contribute to the self-generating fund. Money also comes from charges for phone calls made from the jail and purchases made by inmates at the jail's commissary.

Though Kemper CPA Group auditors pored over 2000-04 records, two supervisors complained there were holes in the records audited.

"Can you explain on a daily basis how the Community Corps works?" Ornellas asked. "There are huge gaps in time and space. We don't know where the crews were working."

"The daily activity reports were sometimes ambiguous," responded Kathleen Jennison, the audit's manager.

Jennison said also that Community Corps work contracts were sometimes hard to read and difficult to find. Those before 2001 could have been destroyed, if the county's record retention policy of saving documents for three years was followed.

Ornellas was particularly interested in a category of work performed by the Community Corps called Special Projects, done in 2000 and 2001.

At that time, work done by the Community Corps was free, but it was supposed to be for nonprofit groups or county departments.

"We can surmise that (former sheriff Baxter Dunn) was using crews wherever he wished," Ornellas said.

The audit should send a strong message to the new sheriff who will start in January 2007 that money in the fund is not a plaything, he said.

County Supervisor Jack Sieglock, who asked for the audit in November 2003 after he heard concerns in the community that the fund wasn't being managed properly, said, "When I look at those numbers, they don't smell right."

Sieglock asked why revenues from the fund had increased by almost $500,000 from 2003 to 2004. He also wanted to know why earnings from the commissary were $310,000 in 2004, while there were no commissary earnings in 2003.

But an audit of the commissary is now being done by the county auditor's office, not by Kemper, and the large amount of money from the commissary in 2004 could have been transferred into the trust fund at the discretion of the former sheriff.

Sheriff Robert Heidelbach said many of the suggestions made by Kemper to improve how the fund is managed have been done or are now being put into place.

Those include an annual audit of the fund, to be done, he said, "when memories are fresh, when records are fresh."

Prior to Kemper's audit, an annual audit of the trust fund had not been done since 1999.

But not all county supervisors were critical of the fund.

"Some of the criticism is directed at the old administration," said County supervisor Victor Mow. "The audit will provide us a position to move forward."

And County Supervisor Dario Marenco wanted it to be clear that board members were making no allegations about the fund.

"There's no crime here," he said. "There is not even indication of misuse."

At the end of the discussion, county supervisors directed the sheriff not to destroy any records until the new sheriff takes office.

In other business, county supervisors voted not to change the pay or the job title of their legislative aides, nor to tinker with how they are appointed.

Contact reporter Cheryl Winkelman at cheryl@tracypress.com.