Union wants experience for audit (OC Register)
A retired probate court judge or an attorney with experience in dealing with conservatorships should be hired by the county to conduct the review in the Public Administrator/Public Guardian’s Office, the Orange County Employees Association said.
Read the union’s letter to Supervisor Janet Nguyen here.
Already the target of two 2009 Orange County grand jury reports, the Public Administrator/Public Guardian Office was thrown back into the public spotlight in August after then-assistant district attorney Todd Spitzer, thought to be next in line to be district attorney, was fired after he began looking into allegations that a case was being mishandled by the agency.
Now Supervisor Pat Bates has asked for a review into how the once little-known county agency responsible for more than $38 million in assets and the lives and deaths of more than 1,000 people a years liquidates the assets of large estates.
Public Administrator/Public Guardian John S. Williams, who blames the complaints on disgruntled employees who were either fired or not promoted, asked for a complete review of his office’s policies and procedures.
He says he is confident in his staff and comfortable with how his office of 59 people is run.
Williams has hired his own personal attorney, Phil Greer, to represent him as an individual.
“Since John Williams assumed control of the office it has been plagued by a string of improprieties, lax controls, an inexplicable proliferation of managers, and dangerously low employee morale,” wrote OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino in a letter sent to Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Janet Nguyen.
“As OCEA has said repeatedly over the past few years, and as the Grand Jury has concluded on two separate occasions, we believe the cause of these problems is the Public Administrator/Public Guardian himself,” he wrote.
Berardino, who has repeatedly criticized Williams over the years, also urged the county to direct its investigator to work with the state Attorney General’s Office, not the District Attorney’s Office, because of what he says is a conflict.
District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is engaged to Assistant Public Administrator/Public Guardian Peggi Buff.
The county’s review will target cases involving estates and conservatorships to make sure they are being handled within the law, said Stephen Dunivent, the deputy county executive officer overseeing the review.
Also being looked into are property auction houses hired by the office and the process used to select those firms.
The review is expected to be done by early November, Dunivent said.
Above: from the union's letter to Supervisor Nguyen urging the choice of an independent review of Williams' PA/PG office.
