Watchdog group would have 14 employees. Scandals, personnel lapses highlight need, administration says. New $4.4 million program would focus on personnel matters.
Following a series of scandals that have washed over California’s state fire department, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed spending $4.4 million to launch a new unit to investigate personnel messes and prevent them from occurring in the future.
The “Professional Standards Program,” according to the state budget plan the governor unveiled Thursday, would dedicate 14 employees to “addressing personnel investigations and adverse actions” statewide at the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.
Cal Fire spokeswoman Janet Upton said the department asked Brown for the funding to create the new unit, which would comprise civilian human resources staff, uniformed law enforcement officers and attorneys.
Their focus, Upton said, would be to prevent miscues.
“Hopefully, they’d work themselves out of a job,” she said.
Brown’s proposal follows a dark saga in the department’s history that started when one of its Ione academy instructors stabbed and strangled his mistress on May 1, 2014, in the Elk Grove house they shared. The former battalion chief, Orville “Moe” Fleming, is serving 16 years to life for second-degree murder.
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