On March 24, the Los Angeles Times reported that closure of the halls and camps is imminent…and then yesterday, the Times Editorial Board said, “Shut down L.A.’s broken juvenile probation. Overhaul proposals are too little, too late.”
The March 24 article referenced a March 23 letter from the California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) to the Department advising that its Corrective Action Plan was not accepted. On March 27, the Department received a second Notice letter providing further information regarding the Department’s failure to present an acceptable Corrective Action Plan.
The bottom-line issue in the BSCC’s letters is that the Department does not have sufficient staff to meet its supervision responsibilities.
On March 6, the Department notified Local 685 of a possible mandatory involuntary reassignment of 100 of Field DPO IIs to the Halls to shore up staffing. In related Department actions, some Field DPO IIs received an email yesterday asserting intent to implement that mandatory involuntary reassignment. We have now met with the Department and received the following information:
The email that was sent out yesterday was sent in error and contained incorrect information. Nevertheless, the Department is set to implement the mandatory involuntary reassignments.
Make no mistake about this:
Local 685 will be fighting this mandatory involuntary reassignment with Unfair Practice Charges, at Impasse, and in Superior Court. On a parallel track, we will keep members informed about the situation, the mandatory reassignments, and future issues as we move forward through these very difficult times.
Here are the facts:
The Department is moving forward with the mandatory involuntary reassignment of approximately 100 Field DPO IIs to the Halls. The notice will go out via email from Human Resources and via phone call from Operations. All other communications may not contain correct information; therefore, do not trust any communication that does not come from one of these two sources.
The Department initially identified for reassignment recently promoted Field DPO IIs who had been permanently assigned to a Hall or Camp within the last 5 years. This approach did not generate the 100 required staff, so now they are now going back 11 years. (Note: Being recently deployed to a Hall or Camp during the pandemic and more recently does not count as being permanently assigned to a Hall or Camp.)
The Department’s current plan is for these 100 DPO IIs to be scheduled for 40 hours of training from April 3-7, after which they will be involuntarily reassigned to one of the Halls. DPO IIs will be asked to provide preference for their involuntary reassignment; however, the preference may not be met. A second round of training (another 40 hours) will take place later in April.
DPO IIs that are on permanent IOD should not be receiving any reassignment. However, one of the flawed emails that went out yesterday included DPO IIs out on permanent IOD. The Department is updating the list to correct this significant error. For anyone with a temporary medical issue, the medical note will be processed by DSB.
Based on daily staffing numbers at the two Halls, the current temporary field staff deployment is not expected to stop immediately even though the Department is implementing this mandatory involuntary reassignment. The Department has begun to place 43 new DSB hires that recently graduated from the Training Academy and it expects another 43 new DSB hires following the April 6 graduation date. Another 43 new DSB hires are expected sometime in May. As Hall staffing stabilizes, the Department will reassess both the current temporary deployment and the mandatory involuntary reassignment.
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