By TIM CAMPBELL
AUDITING:
What is the “philosophy” of auditing? To maintain my professional certifications, I have to take at least 20 hours of continuing education every year. Over the years, I’ve learned interview techniques, fraud recognition, how to use graphics to make audit reports more interesting, and, of course, ethics.
The one thing I’ve never seen is a discussion of the philosophy of auditing. This, of course, relates to L.A. Deputy Mayor of Community Engagement Vahid Khorsand’s town hall statement about debating the “philosophy” of audits. There is nothing philosophical about performance auditing. A program either achieves its goals or it doesn’t. Contracts are either properly managed or they’re not.
The Deputy Mayor was trying to reframe the conversation as an abstract subjective argument instead of a substantive discussion of outcomes. He claimed he “wanted to hear more questions” from the audience when what he was hoping for was something he could address with rhetoric and cliches.
CITY ATTORNEY FEES:
The LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia is running for re-election.
To date, the City has spent $7 million paying Gibson Dunn to avoid transparency and accountability for its homelessness programs. The Mayor, council, and City Attorney have also stonewalled the Controller’s office in its attempts to root our waste in homelessness programs. Meanwhile, the US Attorney and DA have charged two city contractors with fraud totalling about $50 million to date. Instead of dodging accountability, maybe the City Attorney’s time and money would be better spent investigating its own programs for fraud and waste. I have no great love for Kenneth Mejia. His audits are tainted by his bias against anything that’s not Housing First. But he inherited a top-notch audit shop and his staff are still doing good work despite him.
HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX:
Does the Homeless Industrial Complex exist? Those of you with whom I’ve spoken know I rarely use the term Homeless Industrial Complex. It smacks of conspiracy theories and is nebulous. I also think it relieves people of individual responsibility. Its easy to write off unethical behavior as just another example of the HIC .
If there is a Homeless Industrial Complex, its far more subtle than mere fraud or bribery. I very much doubt anyone is giving Nithya Raman envelopes stuffed with cash to grant contracts to a chosen few nonprofits.
I believe the corruption is structural and is centered around power instead of money. Its easy to design a contract with requirements so onerous only the largest nonprofits can qualify. Those nonprofits, in turn, lend their support to the elected officials who approve those contracts.
LAHSA CEO VaLecia Adams with L.A. City Mayor Karen Bass.
Councilmembers hire their homelessness aides from the same nonprofits, and those aides often return to similar positions after their tenure with City Hall. For example, Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum went from CEO of St. Joseph Center to being a special homelessness policy assistant to Mayor Bass, to CEO of LAHSA, and is now a member of Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Institute, a social research policy organization.
This, despite resigning after LAist discovered she approved more than $2 million in contracts with a nonprofit where her husband is a senior manager, and after LAHSA paid our $800,000 to settle whistleblower complaints about her mismanagement. So, if the HIC exists, it is based on political power and personal relationships, and not just money.
SUMMARY:
Despite numerous audits of the City, County, and LAHSA over the past few years, nothing has changed. Programs trade leaders like the MLB trades baseball players. Elected officials desperately try to defend a system anyone else would recognize as broken and completely dysfunctional.
Even as other agencies are uncovering fraud and waste, leaders seem content to let the status quo continue. Some are even discussing yet another tax increase to backill lost federal and state funding, despite overwhelming evidence of waste. The current system has yet to produce any statesman-level leader who is willing to speak truth to power without pushing his or her own agenda. What will it take to create and implement lasting structural change?
It will take the abolishment of the “City” of Los Angeles. As I have studied the options for Palisades to become its own city, I have come to realize that it is nearly impossible. Just as it was nearly impossible for our country to succeed from England and become the United States of America. I am not advocating violence. I am advocating that every district in LA have the right to become their own city, managed by locals who care about where they live and watch every dollar as if it were their own. Since the fire, I have been living in Orange County which is comprised of 39 cities and just a few county districts. It is amazing how well things run here. Crime and corruption is just not a issue except in Anaheim, which is the largest city. Los Angeles City is comprised of over 500 neighborhoods that are often referred to as cities…like Pacific Palisades. For those neighborhoods to become their own city, it would start with one to break the mold and succeed. How hard is this? There is to my knowledge, no neighborhood in the U.S. that has successfully succeeded from the mothership after having been under the thumb of a big city for more than 100 years. To fight this fight, it appears that the court to hear it would be the State of California Assembly. So, this is obviously a long shot. Yet I believe it is the only way to create meaningful, sustainable, political, structural change that will provide the kind of locally managed neighborhoods so many of us Angelinos desire for our children and everyone’s children. Pacific Palisades becoming its own city would not only solve most of our local problems, but it would also pave the way for other neighborhoods to break free of the corruption and crime has ruined Los Angeles. Is this worth fighting for?
Of course homelessness aids are hired from nonprofits. Where else would one find them.
I’ve searched far and wide and cannot find a homelessness for profit listed on the Dow or NASDAQ.
Someone should audit the “law Firm Industrial Complex” – 7 million to Gibson, Dunn,
That is pathetic and shameful. The law firm partners should be embarrassed for taking taxpayer money to defend the never ending homeless GRIFT in L.A.
Does the homeless Industrial Complex even exist? Ask Ted Hayes – he invented the term after the city demolished his Dome Village in DTLA and froze him out in helping the homeless.
There’s no need to look at the Dow or NASDAQ. Many of the large nonprofits are making plenty of money on their own: https://www.citywatchla.com/los-angeles/29707-las-homelessness-programs-who-are-the-players-part-four-nonprofits
And its not just hiring from the NPO world. Executives from the largest NPO’s sit on boards that decide where homelessness money goes–money that benefits their organizations. Maybe things would improve if the city and county hired managers experienced in performance measurement and outcomes.