The water district needs to make some changes. Thanks to an
independent audit by Red Oak Consulting, the Santa Clara Valley
Water District now has a huge list of recommendations to get
started on.
Gilroy
The water district needs to make some changes.
Thanks to an independent audit by Red Oak Consulting, the Santa Clara Valley Water District now has a huge list of recommendations to get started on.
From public suspicion surrounding the hiring of Gregory Zlontnick in a quiet, noncompetitive process, to confusion over the size of its staff and the questionable salary of its part-time elected officials, the water district needs to prove itself to taxpayers.
“We need the water district to be cleaner, greener, and leaner,” said Williams, summarizing the audit’s findings.
The audit, initiated two years ago, was presented to the water district’s board of directors Monday in a 4 hour meeting. This audit is one of many that have occurred since 1999 when the state took $50 million from the water district during a state budget shortfall.
Unlike a financial audit conducted in 2005, Red Oak’s audit focused on the entire organization.
The audit is 72 pages long and includes recommendations for administration, the seven elected members of the board of directors, capital program services, the role of the general manager, financial practices, watershed operations and water-utility enterprises.
The water district staff agreed with the majority of the audit’s recommendations and is already implementing some of them.
The district staff disagreed with a few recommendations, including the audit’s suggestion to increase the amount of time put into governmental relationships. The staff disagreed with this assessment because it “did not take into account looking at working with the community and community groups,” according to district spokesperson Susan Siravo.
The audit touches on public criticism of the district’s over-staffing, suggesting it use a “set of metrics” to eliminate staffing redundancies and to clarify roles and responsibilities.
Board member Rosemary Kamei said the water district had “a lot of problems” but the one thing she would like to do is more closely monitor its staffing levels.
“In relation to core business, there are a lot of different things that the [water district] staff is doing: upkeep of plants, asset management, (Information Technology) and a host of other tasks,” Kamei said. “We need to know where all the increases have been and how to implement that.”
In response, the district staff pointed out that it eliminated 90 budgeted positions during the past two years. Siravo said the staff had “looked at the vacant positions and decided to review which positions were [high or low priority] and then cut the ones we didn’t need.” Also, Siravo said that the overhead of the agency has continued to decline: The 94 percent overhead in 2004/2005 declined to 82 percent in 2005/2006 and is predicted to be 77 percent for 2007/2008.
The audit did not shy away from district employee pay and benefits: “The district should [conduct] an analysis of all benefits as well as salary, so the district can accurately represent employees’ total compensation and readily compare itself with peer organizations.”
The district compared itself to 10 different agencies when negotiating a new five-year contract with employees to come up with an appropriate compensation, Siravo said. This did not include the board of director’s pay, which is higher than the majority of water districts in California.
The audit also reveals changes in the ethics policy of the district with the creation of the Office of Organizational Development, Ethics, Diversity and Inclusion in 2005. The District has been using this office to investigate allegations of poor business practices, including William’s hiring of Gregory Zlontnick, which triggered an investigative report that was given to the board.
“We recognized two common themes [in the audit]: The district is strong in making individual business plans but lacking in well developed industrywide plans. We need to be more cohesive at planning,” Shivaro said.
“We took this audit very seriously so we could learn how to become more efficient and beneficial to the taxpayers. We have taken a good look at how to do better with what we have, “she continued.
No formal action was taken at the meeting, but board member Sig Sanchez said the board had just started to go through the recommendations and would decide how to proceed next week.
The discussion is set to continue on at 9:30 a.m. on November 9th at district’s headquarters in San Jose.
