The report, from the California State Auditor, also found that California Prison Industry Authority executives directed subordinates to hire and promote friends, relatives and other favored candidates on at least 10 different occasions.
The California Prison Industry Authority, also known as CalPIA, was created by the Legislature in 1983, and it is intended to be semi-autonomous and self-supporting in its mission to provide work opportunities in the manufacturing, agricultural and service enterprise sectors to inmates.
The auditor found the agency repeatedly violated state laws from 2017 to 2018 by providing gifts to the California Conservation Corps and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, including $82,000 in artificial turf, $66,000 in digital cameras, $443,000 in perimeter security cameras and $156,000 in furniture.
In the case of the artificial turf, the authority purchased the artificial turf for one of the state's prisons with plans for incarcerated people to install it in the main yard. However, the authority does not offer any training programs that would have provided certifications for installing the turf.
"Therefore, the purchase was not related to a training program or any other CalPIA purpose under state law. Several CalPIA employees informed us that they believed it was improper for CalPIA to purchase the turf for CDCR. Some employees stated that they believed they could not question or disagree with executive management because they were concerned about retaliation if they did so," according to the report.
As of March of this year, the turf still had not been installed; the audit called the expenditure not just unlawful, but wasteful.
"CDCR did not install the turf because it did not realize that it would cost more than $100,000 to do so and that the installation process would require the use of metal stakes that could pose a security risk," according to the report.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation informed the auditor's office that the prison still hopes to eventually install the turf.
The report also found numerous examples of inappropriate hiring at the California Prison Industry Authority.
"From 2016 through 2019, CalPIA executives improperly directed subordinate staff to hire and promote friends, relatives, and other favored candidates on at least 10 different occasions in violation of the California Constitution, which requires civil service hiring decisions to be based on the principle of merit, not favoritism," wrote Chief Counsel Stephanie Ramirez-Ridgeway in the introduction to the report.
She added, "In some of these instances, the subordinate staff told us that they followed the executives' directions because they were concerned about possible retaliation."
The auditor's office interviewed the executives about the reported inappropriate hiring. Executives invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The State Auditor's Office is recommending that the authority take disciplinary action against employees responsible for the unlawful use of funds, as well as those executives "who failed to uphold their duty to protect the merit-based system for hiring civil servants."
The auditor is also calling for the consideration of voiding the appointments of some of the bad-faith hires, and requiring them to return all compensation.
In response to the audit, the California Prison Industry Authority said it would place a notice of the investigation in the personnel files of former employees responsible for the improper use of agency funds, but that no current employees were responsible for the misuse of state money.
The authority also said that it would request that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation conduct an investigation into the executives' activities "and advise CalPIA on appropriate disciplinary action."
(c)2021 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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