A performance audit of the City of Oakland’s hiring practices just released by Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby identifies unfair hiring practices, favoritism, improper promotions and mismanagement of records. The audit names instances in which individuals were given positions because of personal connections even though they were not eligible to be hired, did not meet minimum qualifications or had not participated in competitive examinations.
The audit, performed by Sacramento-based management consulting firm Sjoberg Evashenk, describes findings that support “the prevalent perception throughout the City that a lack of strong leadership and accountability has allowed the perpetuation of unfair hiring activities and inappropriate circumvention of (City of Oakland) Civil Service Rules.” The report concludes unfair hiring practices were, in fact, evident and current systems do not prevent further violation or circumvention of rules and regulations.
“Confidential tips received from employees and citizens through the Office of the City Auditor’s Fraud, Waste & Abuse Prevention hotline were instrumental to the findings in the report,” said Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby.
“The audit clearly describes what and where the problems are and how they must be corrected,” continued Auditor Ruby “Now the impetus is on city leaders to immediately devote themselves to making the required changes identified in the 85 recommendations in the audit to improve our hiring practices and systems.”
The audit, covering fiscal years 2003 to 2008, reviews hiring practices throughout the 18 agencies, offices and departments in the City, including police and fire. The City’s total workforce is 5,574 people.
The audit finds that while most appointments of personnel in the last five years were made in accordance with the City’s civil service rules, the exceptions themselves, and the faulty systems that allowed for exceptions to occur place Oakland at risk by allowing unqualified people to perform city jobs.
The audit says the current system provides for inappropriate actions such as:
• Creation of ‘ghost employees’ - fictitious or real individuals who do not work for the City but receive a paycheck;
• Inappropriately appointing individuals to positions who are added to the City’s payroll;
• Changing employee pay rates without checks and balances; and
• Maintaining terminated employees on the payroll.
The audit uncovered numerous examples of inappropriate actions:
- An employee’s employment status mysteriously changed from provisional to permanent, but no records in any form were available to justify the appointment. Furthermore, the audit revealed the employee was not only appointed to a position for which he failed to meet minimum qualifications but was later promoted to oversee the department’s entire financial division.
- Special consideration was given to a relative of the former Oakland Police Officers’ Association president that was not given to other recruits. Also, the former Oakland City Administrator’s daughter was allowed to attend several police training academies despite deficiencies in both academic and physical fitness test scores and recommendations by staff to not advance her in the process.
- The nephew of the former City Administrative Officer (CAO) was appointed to the classified, permanent part-time position of Parking Meter Collector in July 2001 and promoted to another classified, regular permanent position in July 2003. For these two appointments, we could not find evidence of this employee meeting minimum qualifications or participating in a competitive examination processes. He currently remains in the position.
The dictionary definition of ‘nepotism’ is: “favoritism granted to relatives or friends, without regard to their merit.” Suitably, the word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, meaning "nephew" or "grandchild".
In a written response to the audit, the City administration stated that a lawsuit by the Oakland Police Officers Association prevented the City from implementing an ordinance to address concerns of nepotism and favoritism.
The audit points to the ultimate impact of such staffing practices: “When the City employs individuals that do not meet basic qualifications or have not fairly competed for appointments, the City not only risks having a workforce where individuals are not competent to perform the functions of the job in which they were hired but also reinforcing the perception that hiring decisions are based on relationships rather than the presumed fairness of a merit based system—all of which undermine the credibility of the City’s government and its leaders.”
Response from the City’s administration states that, “while some audit recommendations may assist the City in updating and modifying its hiring practices, the City is not in agreement with many of the comments, conclusions and recommendations in the report.” The response further stated that, “the City remains committed to the principles of fairness and equality…and will…develop a code of conduct for City employees, and provide training on ethics to managers and supervisors.”
As Oakland continues to deal with serious social and economic issues, there will be much attention on the state of progress related to issues outlined in the audit - issues that directly impact every resident and taxpayer in the Oakland area.