COUNTY OFFICE INVESTIGATED; VIOLATIONS FOUND AT PALMDALE CHILD-SUPPORT SITE.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Daily News Staff Writer

A Los Angeles County investigation into the district attorney's Palmdale child-support office found that 20 parents who had completed their support payments were incorrectly threatened with suspension of their driver's licenses after a worker mistakenly reopened 20 closed cases.

The investigation also found that confidential documents with information such as clients' Social Security numbers and addresses were thrown into an open trash bin and that clients were solicited to testify favorably at a public hearing about the county's troubled child-support system.

``The majority of the allegations made in this report were found to be unsubstantiated,'' Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, said last week. ``Corrective action has been taken in the other instances.''

The investigation was undertaken at the urging of Los Angeles County supervisors, who said they had received complaints about the Palmdale child-support office, mainly from employees. The investigation was done by the county Chief Administrative Office, the Auditor-Controller's Office and the Department of Human Resources.

While finding violations of county and state policies, the three departments' reports also said a number of allegations were unsubstantiated, including charges that employees were improperly promoted as rewards for their allegiance to their bosses, rather than for their merit, and that employee training funds were misappropriated.

In one substantiated case, the Department of Human Resources report said, the daughter of an office supervisor was hired as a student worker. Other employees complained that she talked excessively on the telephone to friends and was loud and disruptive.

The young woman has resigned, the report said, and department officials promised that they will enforce an anti-nepotism policy.

In another case, the auditor-controller report said local officials solicited parents to speak favorably about the Palmdale office at a county hearing about the child-support system. One official drove two clients to the Los Angeles hearing and said she offered them child care, the report said.

The auditor-controller report also noted allegations that noncustodial parents' lives were disrupted last July when a worker caused state income-tax levy and driver's license suspension notices to be sent out incorrectly to 20 people who already had paid their support obligations.

The warnings were sent automatically by the Bureau of Family Support's computer system, which creates them whenever an account is reopened, unless it is closed the same day, the report said.

The worker told officials that she came in to work on a Sunday to eliminate a backlog that accumulated while she was training employees at another office. The 20 cases had to be reopened because of additional monies that were received after they were closed, the report said. She did not close the accounts until the next day, the report said.

``The BFSO Officer, who reopened the accounts, should have been aware of the consequences of not closing the accounts timely, since she trains other staff,'' the report states. ``We have concluded that carelessness or accidental oversight was the cause.''

Auditor-controller officials said they searched the trash bin in the Palmdale office's parking lot and found several documents containing case histories and personal information. The office's trash was easily identifiable by the blue plastic bags that contained it, they said.

``BFSO management told us they intend to take corrective action to ensure the confidentiality of case/client information,'' the report states. ``They will request the department to purchase shredders, instruct staff to shred documents before placing them in the recycle bin and spot-check the trash receptacle weekly.''

The Chief Administrative Office report saIid a California Occupational Safety and Health Agency inspector faulted the office for not servicing its fire extinguishers regularly, for an exit door not working properly and for other matters, including a lack of drinking cups for employees.