AUDIT FINDS DEFICIENCIES AT WASCO PRISON

Poor management and careless upkeep over several years has "needlessly
endangered both staff and inmates" at Wasco State Prison, according to a
scathing state audit released Friday.

Those deficiencies caused two high-profile April incidents there: a
seven-hour prison power outage and inmate procurement of confidential,
personal staff information, it said.

The auditors also offered scores of recommendations for shoring up security,
infrastructure and staff training at the 8-year-old prison.

The prison houses 6,000 inmates in minimum- and medium-custody facilities
and at a reception center.

"Although these conditions have not yet caused any serious repercussions, an
unnecessarily risky atmosphere will remain until Wasco resolves these
problems," the audit said.

Assemblyman Dean Florez, D-Shafter, requested the state audit after the
blackout and information leak.

At the time, Warden Ron Candelaria appeared "less than sincere" about
changing things, Florez said Friday.

Officials at Wasco and the California Department of Corrections "concurred
with our findings and recommendations and are taking corrective actions,"
the report also said.

In fact, the department also is looking to implement facility upkeep and
policy and procedure changes at its other 32 prisons as a result of the
findings, said spokeswoman Jeanie Esajian.

"We've been working with them on the audit from the beginning," she said.
"There are numerous things we've done and we're starting to identify other
things we can do better."

Candelaria, however, called the audit an opinion piece by people with no
experience in state corrections and said the citing of problems and
suggestions for improvement really came from him and his staff.

It's tough to maintain an institution holding 6,000 inmates when it was
designed to hold 2,900 and when the staff is overwhelmed with emergency
maintenance problems, he said.

It's also unfair for the auditors to bash management "with a broad brush"
when more than 1,200 people work at the prison, Candelaria said.

"Vigilance belongs to all of us," he said.

The auditors concluded, among other things, that Wasco has a backlog of
incomplete maintenance and repairs to critical equipment and that failure to
repair defective equipment four years ago caused the power outage.

Prison staff weren't trained to handle the blackout, they said. Some
officers didn't have flashlights or radios. The incident, they said, raises
questions about Wasco's Y2K readiness.

And poor vigilance by staff, they found, allowed unsupervised inmates to
gain access to confidential worker information, including addresses and
Social Security numbers.

What frightened Florez most in the audit, he said, is that inmates had
access to detailed maps of the prison showing the location of critical
equipment, armories and hazardous-material storage areas.

It was an inmate, in fact, that generated one of the maps for the auditors,
Florez said he was told.

"I was shocked," he said. "The picture was more dire than I thought."

Responding to Candelaria's comments, Florez asked why the warden didn't fix
the problems or ask the government for help fixing them if he knew they existed.

"I hope he sees he has an opportunity (to fix prison problems) and seizes
that opportunity," Florez said, "or he takes his chances with the governor,
who appoints wardens."

Improvements are being made, Candelaria said.

Administrators have disseminated staff memos stressing vigilance, such as
securing work areas, and are demanding detailed reports on needed and
completed maintenance, he said.

While the state is spearheading Y2K preparedness, Candelaria said, he has
developed plans to boost staffing around the time the clock strikes midnight
2000.

"I don't like the audit," he said. "But I'm going to take the constructive
criticism ... and make things work."

Correctional officer Tim Payton, president of the Wasco chapter of the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association, agreed that workers were
unprepared for the blackout and expect to undergo new training soon.

He said the warden is satisfactorily addressing the problem that has
concerned the union most -- prisoners obtaining personnel information.

"We've been working with the warden," Payton said. "Things are getting much
better."