FROM STAFF REPORTS
SAN BERNARDINO — In its annual report released Monday, the San Bernardino County grand jury raised concerns over “cronyism” in the county assessor’s office and alleged misuse of county equipment for political purposes.
The grand jury declared the $1.3 million increase in the assessor’s operating budget unjustified, finding “great concern” with the qualifications and productiveness of many of the executive support employees added under the increase.
The report states that most of the executive support staff had previous associations with the Assessor Bill Postmus when he was on the Board of Supervisors or Republican Central Committee, and that many of them lack training or experience in their fields.
The grand jury also found that staff members used considerable time on projects like creating Web site links and planning outreach meetings.
“Such projects are at best ‘public image’ work,” the report states, and not core duties of the job.
Instead, the grand jury found e-mails and testimony that executive support staff engaged in political activities during normal work hours. This included arranging political meetings, soliciting campaign contributions and messages about the Republican Party Web site RedCounty.com.
In response, Postmus issued a statement declaring the majority of the political e-mails “spam,” in that they were unsolicited messages to staff members. Postmus said his office conducted a query of the roughly 17,000 e-mails generated by his office and found 34 e-mails political in nature. Of these he said many were national media stories. Others that were overtly political messages were created by a person “no longer affiliated” with his office — an apparent reference to former assistant assessor Adam Aleman, who was arrested Monday on six felony counts. Postmus said he said they will install firewalls to block future political messages.
The report also calls into question a consulting contract made in July with Mike Richman of MPR Strategies. The contract was made for $49,200, which was just under the $50,000 that would have required it to go through the Board of Supervisors for approval. The contract did not go up for public bid, according to the report.
Richman did not generate promised bi-weekly reports, provide detailed invoices or regularly attend staff meetings, the jury found. In fact, the jury found very little that was accomplished under the contract.
Postmus responded, “...in hindsight, I acknowledge the contract was not carefully drafted and should have included additional details that were discussed verbally but were not committed to paper. To prevent a reoccurrence, our office will demand detailed, written scopes of work and billing statements from any future consultant.”
Assessor Spokesman Ted Lehrer said the assessor’s office is still conducting its own internal investigation into the contract.
Another concern raised was over the severance package given to the former Assistant Assessor Jim Erwin, which amounted to six month’s pay of more than $63,000 plus benefits, according to the Grand Jury report. The report said no other instance could be found in the county of a separation agreement longer than four months.