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First 5: A question of oversight

The bad news isn't just that university researchers spent tax dollars on a convertible, beachside retreats and sofas.

BY GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writer gwenner@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Oct 28 2006 8:30 PM

Last Updated: Saturday, Oct 28 2006 10:15 PM

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, in the music room at Buttonwillow Elementary School, a telling conversation unfolded during the monthly meeting of First 5 Kern commissioners.

"When can this commission say to the taxpayers of Kern County that we have actually made an improvement (in children's lives) and show what that improvement is?" Commissioner Jeff Green asked a group of Cal State Bakersfield researchers hired to study that exact question.

"Do we actually have the data?" replied Tanya Boone, one of three new researchers who took over the project in June. "I cannot say with any certainty that we do, because I have not seen it."

It was a disappointing, even disturbing answer after five years of study by Boone's predecessors at the university's Applied Research Center.

And those five years of study weren't free.

The Cal State research cost taxpayers close to $5 million, including Kern's share of roughly $3 million. Millions more paid for evaluation software and consultants.

And the previous Cal State researchers -- one of whom got a car allowance from First 5 on seemingly little more than a handshake -- claimed last year their work showed "First 5 Kern is making a substantive and significant difference" in local lives.

When can the commission show just how the $11 million or so of tobacco-tax money it doles out annually has improved the lives of Kern County's youngest children?

That question is supposed to be answered every year. The law that created the state's First 5 agencies requires it.

But after five years and more than $3 million, Kern County still cannot answer that basic question.

Instead, Boone and her colleagues are stuck sorting through data that apparently wasn't collected properly and didn't track the benchmarks First 5 Kern chose to study.

The information is supposed to give concrete results showing how the 50-cents-a-pack state cigarette tax that fuels First 5 helps children through age 5 get a good start in life.

Meanwhile, a Californian investigation of how the research center, under its former director, spent evaluation money from First 5 agencies in Kern and other nearby counties reveals a series of questionable expenses OK'd by the researchers, their then-managers at the university's private foundation and First 5 Kern's chief executive.

Examples include:

* More than $17,000 in personal car lease payments to the research center's former director, Kenneth Nyberg, that may not have been accounted for as possible income (see "Cruisin'"sidebar);

* More than $12,000 on seaside retreats for research center and First 5 staff;

* $1,800 for a charter flight to bring a First 5 director to one of the retreats;

* More than $155,000 for consultants, two of them spouses of research-unit staffers;

* More than $100,000 for travel, including trips not directly related to First 5 for researchers' "professional development";

* More than $62,000 for new computers and another $22,000 for software and accessories;

* $1,400 for a couch and two bookcases for Nyberg's office;

* $1,300 for embroidered satchels and golf shirts.

The Californian investigation is the first outside look at more than 3,500 pages of receipts, travel claims, check requests and other documents former researchers submitted to First 5 Kern for reimbursement, according to state and local auditors.

The paperwork, provided by Cal State Bakersfield in response to a public records request, shows researchers submitted claims for professional dues, cell phone bills, car adapters, PalmPilots, home Internet service and other items.

Steve Ladd, First 5 Kern's executive director, assured The Californian the costs were legitimate.

Retreats, computers, logo gear and so on are all common business expenses, he said.

"It was like starting up a new business," Ladd said of at least two dozen computers bought for evaluators. "So we helped them buy whatever they needed, just like we did for any other contractor who's starting fresh."

Cal State Bakersfield officials shrugged when asked if some items faculty charged to First 5 -- such as four Morro Bay retreats -- may not have been what voters had in mind when they OK'd the tobacco tax eight years ago.

"It was a work session," said W. Michael Chertok, the top executive at the Cal State Bakersfield Foundation. The private foundation, which is not subject to the same open-books accountability rules as the university, oversaw the research center until last year.

If a research contract OKs an expenditure, said Michael Neal, Cal State Bakersfield's vice president of business and administrative services, the university considers the spending appropriate.

Yet the car payments alone show, at best, a sloppy regard toward how the public's money was spent.

Ladd says First 5 agreed to reimburse the research center for an allowance Nyberg was already getting.

Not true, campus officials say.

No one except the university president has a car allowance, they say, and they're not aware of any professor ever getting one.

Ladd also said the lease payments were financially advantageous to First 5. Nyberg drove extensively between counties, he said, making the lump sum cheaper than mileage would have been.

A Californian tally found otherwise (see "Cruisin'" sidebar).

In the meantime, Nyberg -- who did not respond to several e-mail requests for comment -- and other key researchers have left the project. Nyberg entered an early retirement program and is not scheduled to teach until January, campus officials said.

In mid-June, three new faculty members took over and renamed the unit. It's now the Institute for Social and Community Research.

Director William Edward Wagner III said there will be no more "fancy retreats at Morro Bay" or other "lavish" spending under his watch.

Boone, an assistant director along with Robin Högnäs, said after the October meeting the group is "horrified" by some of the earlier spending.

In August, the trio finished First 5 Kern's annual evaluation, started under Nyberg.

Their report notes the information they inherited stymied their ability to tell how well programs are working.

"We confronted enormous data limitations across all of the 34 programs for which we received data," the report says.

The new group told commissioners at the Oct. 4 Buttonwillow meeting they'll now dig through the database to figure out what's in it.

County Supervisor Don Maben, who sits on First 5 Kern's commission, was disturbed by what was described at the meeting as a "disconnect" between data collection and agency goals.

"If that information is not there," Maben later said of the data, "then somebody shined us on."

What is First 5?

First 5 Kern is a county-level public agency that doles out money from a state tobacco tax. Every county in California has its own First 5 commission. There’s also a state commission that oversees the program.

Local commissions don’t provide services, but decide which organizations get funds. Kern County gets roughly $10 million to $12 million in First 5 dollars annually.

California voters approved the 50-cents-a-pack cigarette tax in 1998 to help children through age 5 enter school well prepared and in good health, among other things.

Former actor-director Rob Reiner spearheaded 1998’s Proposition 10.

Since the program started, Kern County has received roughly $85 million from monthly tobacco-tax disbursements, state records show. Some additional funds have paid for school readiness and other specific programs.

The money has gone to a range of projects and programs, including playground equipment, immunization and dental programs, education for teen parents, health insurance enrollment and more.

More than $91 million for 450 projects,has been committed by First 5 Kern, according to the group.

More cigarette taxes? On Nov. 7, state voters face another cigarette tax.

Proposition 86 would tack an additional $2.60 to every pack of cigarettes.

The new tax would raise about $2 billion a year.

Proponents say the money would expand health insurance for children, among other things.

Opponents call it a misguided money grab that will benefit large hospital corporations.

Currently, state cigarette taxes total 87 cents a pack and raise about $1 billion a year, according to the state legislative analyst.

You can read the state’s analysis of Proposition 86 at www.voterguide.ss.ca.gov/props/prop86/analysis86.html.

Through the center, Cal State Bakersfield faculty and grad students can take part in research projects for outside contractors such as First 5, CalTrans, NASA, county departments and other customers.

The Applied Research Center was launched at Cal State Bakersfield in 1987, according to its Web site. It operated through the university’s private foundation until last year.

Last year, along with many campuses systemwide, Cal State Bakersfield moved research functions to the university. That meant a switch to stricter “state-side” accounting rules and paperwork as well.

In mid-June, after the research center’s former director started an early retirement program, a new group of faculty took over the unit. They renamed it the Institute for Social and Community Research.

You can read more about the institute and its goals by visiting its Web site at www.csub.edu/iscr/

Who runs First 5 Kern?

Nine people sit on First 5 Kern’s oversight commission. Three, as county department heads, are permanent members; one is a county supervisor; the remaining five are supervisor appointees.

The state law that established First 5 says county commissions must have from five to nine members. The law also requires a certain mix: at least one county supervisor; at least two from county departments dealing with public welfare; and the rest from First 5-funded agencies or education and community groups involved with children.

That means many commissioners — as is the case in Kern — are involved with organizations that ask for money from First 5.

Commissioners are not paid, though they get a small stipend for travel and other costs.