Former Los Angeles County Probation Division chief Adolfo Gonzales, who was fired final March amid widepread dysfunction on the company’s juvenile halls, alleges in a lawsuit that he was ousted for reporting dire staffing shortages to state regulators.
Gonzales’ two-year, one-month tenure was marked by near-constant controversies. However in a lawsuit filed final month, he argued that county supervisors determined to terminate him solely after he was frank with inspectors from the Board of State and Group Corrections concerning the company’s staffing disaster.
The board, known as the BSCC, has the facility to close down juvenile detention services if inspections reveal that circumstances aren’t as much as state requirements.
“Gonzales candidly reported to the BSCC inspectors the staffing shortages in Probation Division which brought about lack of compliance with numerous California State laws and mandates,” the lawsuit says. “Because of Gonzales’ reviews to BSCC, he was terminated by the County.”
The state board declined to remark. Mira Hashmall, outdoors counsel for L.A. County, referred to as the lawsuit baseless.
“The Probation Division suffered from a scarcity of management beneath Adolfo Gonzales, which is why his employment was terminated,” she wrote in a press release to The Occasions. “He’s no whistleblower.”
Underneath Gonzales’ management, the perennially struggling company careened from one drawback to the following. There have been extra lockdowns, extra fights and fewer employees members to cope with them. Deputies stated they had been too frightened of the violence contained in the juvenile halls to return to work. Youths had been traumatized too, compelled to urinate of their locked rooms as a result of nobody was round to allow them to out.
Gonzales’ lawyer, Michael Conger, stated his shopper’s account of staffing points closely influenced a Jan. 13, 2023, report from state inspectors, which discovered, amongst different shortcomings, that the county’s two juvenile halls had been dangerously short-staffed. Months later, the board would shut down the 2 halls after the county repeatedly failed to enhance circumstances.
Conger stated it was Gonzales’ “candid” portrayal of staffing issues that led to his termination two months later.
The state inspection was not the one embarrassment Gonzales’ company suffered within the months main as much as his firing, nevertheless. On Feb. 11, 2023, The Occasions reported that Gonzales overrode an inside disciplinary board’s suggestion to fireplace an officer who had violently restrained a 17-year-old. After The Occasions’ report, a majority of the Board of Supervisors referred to as for Gonzales’ resignation.
Gonzales’ lawyer stated this was not what earned the board’s ire.
“We don’t imagine that had something to do with it,” he stated. “That was a whole non-issue. They weren’t mad at that.”
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Information present the county spent greater than $900,000 on Gonzales throughout his stint with the division.
By the point he left, Gonzales had obtained $927,000 in compensation, in line with county wage knowledge. It’s unclear if that determine consists of different perks Gonzales was entitled to beneath his employment settlement with the county, which promised relocation prices and severance pay.
In line with his employment settlement, reviewed by The Occasions, Gonzales was entitled to as much as $25,000 to relocate from San Diego, the place he labored for 5 years operating the county’s Probation Division.
Information present he additionally obtained $172,521 — equal to 6 months’ wage — as severance pay after he was fired.
The board changed Gonzales with Guillermo Viera Rosa, promising a brand new chapter for the long-troubled company. However up to now, his tenure has been affected by the identical staffing disaster that haunted his predecessor.
A report launched Thursday from the county’s Workplace of Inspector Normal discovered that “dangerously low staffing ranges” had contributed to the chaotic Nov. 4 escape of a youth from Los Padrinos juvenile corridor. After a number of teenagers attacked a employees member, one briefly escaped to a neighboring golf course.
On the time of the incident, just one employees member — who had by no means earlier than been assigned to juvenile halls — had been within the unit with 14 youths, the report’s authors discovered. The report notes the staffing stage violates state legislation, which requires the company keep a ratio of 1 employees member for 10 youths.
That day, the Probation Division had scheduled 100 employees members to work on the facility — the minimal required in an effort to function.
Sixty of them didn’t present up.
