FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, April 3, 2008
CHICK AUDIT OF LAPD HQ MAKES 32 RECOMMENDATIONS FINDS WAYS TO SAVE PUBLIC DOLLARS
Los Angeles— In a report containing 32 recommendations for improvement, City Controller Laura Chick released her audit of the construction of the Los Angeles Police Headquarters saying, “It is time for us to be thinking outside of the box and adopting more flexibility and modern approaches which could cost us less in the long‐run.”
The construction of the new Police Headquarters Facility is one of the most expensive and visible projects the City of Los Angeles has undertaken in recent years. To date, the Police Headquarters project has faced schedule delays and budget increases due to land acquisition issues, construction cost escalation, local construction market conditions, and changes to project scope.
“It is unthinkable that a project as major as the new police headquarters, would only have one bidder. The City should have an aggressive outreach program to pursue contractors and encourage them to apply for business. The more contractors that throw their hat in the ring, results in increased competition and choices which usually means a better deal for the City.” wrote Chick in a letter to the City’s elected officials.
“As I have found in several other audits, the City must do a much better job at the front end of the negotiation process. We found many limitations and obstacles how the contracts were written that may have resulted in increased costs,” said Chick.
“BOE has to work with what the Municipal Facilities Committee hands off to them in project scope. Pages 1‐8 in our audit follow the convoluted path of this project from $303 million in 2004 to $454 million in 2007 (including general fund expenditures.),” said Chick.
The primary objectives of the audit was an overall assessment of the management functions on the Police Headquarters Facility project and to conduct contract compliance reviews of the two contracts with DMJM Design/Roth+Sheppard Joint Venture, the project architect, and Vanir Construction Management Inc., the project construction management consultant.
“It is astounding that we keep asking the voters to approve multi‐billion dollar bond measures without including language to set aside a small percentage of the bond money for regular audits of these projects. For example, out of a total current budget of $454 million this audit cost .03% of the total budget and provides 32 recommendations on how we need to do it better and more cost effectively,” said Chick.
The Chick audit can be found here.
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