Greuel Will Review LACCD's Hiring of Inspector General

The Los Angeles Community College District's hiring of an independent auditor to oversee its multi-billion dollar building program is finally going to receive the scrutiny that a group of Northeast L.A. residents have requested for months.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the LACCD has asked L.A. City Controller Wendy Greuel to conduct an independent investigation into their hiring Policy Masters Inc., a fledgling auditing firm which has come under scrutiny by local advocacy groups for its lack of credentials and ties to LACCD campaign boosters.

Click here to see the full Los Angeles Times story.

As originally , Chiang's audit found that LACCD ignored its internal procurement guidelines in awarding Christine Marez's newly formed company Policy Masters Inc. a 5-year, $3.25 million Inspector General contract.

The audit states that Policy Masters scored the second lowest of the 11 firms to apply, yet made the second highest bid.

In a letter that accompanied the audit, Jeff Brownfield of the Controller's Office wrote that "the evidence presented in this report raised legitimate questions about the integrity of the process that led to the selection of the Inspector General."

Nine months into their contract, the audit found that Policy Masters had completed only one audit, that of the Van de Kamps property in Glassell Park, a document "bore little resemblance, if any, to an audit by an independent firm," according to Brownfield.

The audit called for an independent review of the hiring process, and during a community meeting in August, Brownfield suggested an investigation by the district attorney's office would also be in order if action was not taken by the LACCD board.

Mona Field, a longstanding member of the LACCD board of trustees who sat in on several interviews during the procurement process, said that the audit did not take into account that Policy Masters were an "up and coming company who were willing to go the extra mile."

The LACCD Board of Commissioners had initially responded to Chiang's audit by establishing an internal committee of its own board of members to review the hiring of Policy Masters--a move that drew the ire of the Van de Kamps Coalition, a group which has longed urged LACCD to establish a community college campus on the historic Northeast L.A. property.

"Does anyone think that Field will make public findings that there was anything wrong with her own work?" said Laura Gutierrez, a Van de Kamps Coalition member. "It’s a classic case of setting up another committee to whitewash the underlying corrupt contracting processes of our community college district."

 Marez, who was still undergoing certification classes to become an Inspector General at the time of her hiring, defended her record in The Times story and said she welcomed Greuel's review.