The picture isn’t working out. Imagine one guy on a ladder, one holding the ladder, one directing traffic and one supervising with a two-way radio.
This is an image familiar to court workers all over California who witness something similar every day. One bulb, one worker to replace it, one to hold the ladder, one to ensure safety and to direct traffic and one to supervise.
All being billed against a service work order for about $99.00 per person, per hour. No, we’re not done yet. There is the people whom the supervisor has on the other end of the two-way radio that must be paid, along with the area supervisor and those people in accounting that will code the invoice. And we can’t forget the management bonus.
If this were a ballast instead of just a bulb, all of this activity would be subcontracted out to a similar motley crew as a subcontract of these guys here. That is where the really big money is. Installing a ballast that costs just twelve bucks might cost you, the taxpayer as much as two thousand five hundred dollars.
Let’s look at the same transaction with local court workers or DGS workers. This same motley crew changing the light bulb (no disrespect meant state/dgs workers) would cost a little less than 2/3 rds as much as the service provider. If this were a ballast replacement instead of a bulb replacement, this motley crew of state or DGS workers would cost just 15% of an AOC service provider as nothing would need to be subcontracted out.
We’re happy to see a vote that subjects court construction funds to the public contract code but we would like to see others join us in asking why these contracts were structured like slot machines fixed to hit the jackpot with every coin deposited in the first place. Also why the new contracts are more of the same, save boosting that $500.00 of no accountability to $2,000.00 of little accountability.
This is how the AOC mans buildings.
They don’t do what you would do and go hire someone with a pulse, experience and tools and pay them an hourly rate.
They allow another company to pay the 25 bucks per hour to a person with a pulse, a clean criminal background check and no tools or knowledge and make a whopping 400%+ minimum markup by billing hours against a service work order. Part of the jackpot comes into play because it’s possible to be billed a hundred hours against service work orders for just fourty hours of actual work. The other part of the jackpot comes in the incentive to subcontract everything out at inflated costs as to avoid the profit ceiling presented by your own work force.
We will be attaching some additional files to this post that outlines Team Jacobs issues in Contra Costa County soon so check back.
Judicial Council Watcher 
Courthouse Mouse
March 7, 2011
Team Jacobs always did puzzle me, wandering around staring at random things. They attached smoke detectors to our ceilings with double-stick tape and then wondered why they fell. One fell in a public area and almost hit someone. The saying ‘ Good enough for government work’ was blown out of the water by them.
Michael Paul
March 7, 2011
I’ve been on two dozen or more team jacobs sites statewide. With a few rare exceptions, whom happen to also be in the tiny community of certified stationary engineers and friends of mine – some of the best people ABM / Team Jacobs has, these people lack knowledge, background and tools.
How can you do building maintenance without tools? The guy with the double-stick tape smoke detectors? I bet he didn’t have any tools.
These people manning these buildings are all low paid and low skilled for the most part, being billed out far more expensive than certified stationary engineers.
The AOC has paid tens of thousands of dollars to train them, just to watch them all take those skills to greener pastures where they can make more than $25.00 per hour. I know, I sat in class with about twenty of them while the AOC was paying them and paying for their classes for a couple of weeks in Riverside, California.
After the first group left ABM for greener pastures the AOC did it a second time but flew them all to Dallas. Hotels, per diem, etc. As Jon has pointed out, these people lack any pride of ownership and there’s a relatively high turnover.
Because they have no tools, it is justification to sub it out to a more expensive sub – with tools and experience. In this regards, the people of AGS were better. They had tools and trucks, though no contractors license. Jacobs had only warm bodies. ABM has some good people wearing the Jacobs uniforms but they are few and far between. The courts would be better off with local temp to hires or creating and equipping a maintenance department.
Jon Wintermeyer
March 7, 2011
That brings us back to the AOC RFP for these services and how poorly it was prepared and incomplete for what the successful vendor had to provide with regard to qualified tradesmen, training, vehicles, tools and how they would handle the stocking of equipment and supplies at each Trial Court location. The AOC FMU manager staff of suits had not a clue what to look for at these locations or what they should have expected their Team Jacobs staff to arrive with as a team ready to work. If they did, on the first time they arrived at the CC Court maintenance office, they would have sent them all packing and ended the contract then.
EMCOR’s staff was limited, but were qualified, had tools and vehicles and supplies for the two CC Court buildings they serviced until they were terminated, which is more than Team Jacobs accomplished.
When CC Court requested that the AOC FMU have Team Jacobs terminate two of their assigned staff for their actions, they were only given a transfer to another Court in the BANCRO region, just shift to problem worker to another location.
Michael Paul
March 8, 2011
Regarding the costs of ballast or igniter replacements: Due to an aging standard on flourescent fixtures, there is a push to convert older fluorescent lighting to more energy efficient fluorescent lighting.
Some of the most expensive commercial fixtures cost only about $600.00. When I brought up the “Why don’t you replace the whole lamp instead of just the ballast” with Mr. Stetson because I was concerned with these costs, he indicated that the AOC doesn’t do things that way. Nonetheless, I indicated it was impossible to justify that much money being spent on any light when the most expensive, brand new fixture costs only $600.00 and a typical replacement fixture would cost about $100.00, complete with ballast. The retrofit kits cost less than a hundred dollars and take less than an hour to install. So why do they cost 2K-2.5K to replace?
During my enduring attempt to challenge these and other costs, I would ask the management of OCCM why they engaged with someone who was clearly robbing them. They represented that they are the service provider, they are contractually bound to use them and that they could not get a better deal anywhere else. They tried and these service providers held their feet over the fire because no one else was qualified to do this work, further representing that nothing at all could be done about this due to contractual obligations.
This is about the time I started looking for waders because it was getting waist deep.
The interesting thing about these lighting retrofits that cost anywhere between 2K and 2.5K per lamp is that while the AOC was invoiced and paid for whole buildings to be converted over only a fraction of the building was completed. They would then pay them again to do the same job they didn’t do the first time.
It isn’t good enough to audit OCCM. You need to audit the service providers in accordance with the provisions of their contracts that permits such an audit. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear anyone had a right to audit the subcontractors in this melee free for all contract. This is where the big money issues lie.
Michael Paul
March 8, 2011
I knew early on that this whole matter was contracting fraud that involved members of the AOC. Never in my life would I have ever imagined actually coming across contracting fraud. I took the classes over the years because they were obligatory, because they were required as a condition of various employment. The environment under which this contracting fraud exists could not be more perfect. The organizational structure: perfect. The legal environment: perfect. Conditions of transparency and accountability: perfect. A lack of effective oversight: perfect.
It was my analysis of the facts on the ground that caused me initially report these as unlicensed contractors submitting false claims against the state – and not contracting fraud, likely involving kickbacks. The thought there was to offer a way out by presenting it as an opportunity to recover the money in this melee without bringing up the issue of the kickbacks that is likely fueling it all.
Any legitimate organization on planet earth would have taken the free pass offered by a false claims case. It became obvious that I was not dealing with a legitimate organization but a criminal enterprise when they continued to ignore my overt overtures.
The fraud continued unabated and what little evidence I had presented magically disappeared. This is the point when I turned into the investigator empowered by the california false claims act and an employee of the state and stopped sharing evidence with the AOC.
I instantly came to realize what I was later told by a manager senior to me. This matter rises to the top of the organization. Everybody without the title Manager or below is an innocent bystander or a victim with a lot to lose. Many with the title of Manager or above are participants or have knowledge of these events.
Thinking there was something wrong with Judnick and that he was a part of this conspiracy, I then escalated the whole matter to Michael Derr, Mark Moore, Mark Dusman and Kyle Nishimura requesting a qui tam release to go after the money myself.
A second overture. The first one, I’m not looking for a dime. The second one, I’m suggesting that a private attorney, MY ATTORNEY look into this matter as a false claims case against the government and be able to get paid for it. Again, under the false claims act, these people participating in the JC/AOC still get a free pass as under the false claims act, they cannot be implicated for their participation.
A wider audience now has a complete picture and they are my AOC bosses.
Again, back to ignore Michael Paul, other than the October 14th conversation and some meetings with HR about my allegations.
On or around December 1 I escalated this matter to the senior management of the AOC directly, the chief justice, lowenthal, strickland, hayashi and corbett. What I got back was a letter from Curtis Child copied to these legislators that basically said I was exaggerating. I provided proof that I was not, in fact exaggerating and that he was lying to protect the AOC.
On December 7th, the AOC rushed out and had the AG’s office file a lawsuit as fast as they could, one that lacked any meat whatsoever on the allegation bones. It was, according to press reports at the time, only filed against AGS.
I was mystified as to why Jacobs wasn’t a part of these lawsuits. I contacted the reporter directly and asked about the other lawsuit. A couple of days later, a second lawsuit appears to have been….. backdated to coincide with the first filing, naming only JFI. In an interview with Ron Overholt that the reporter conducted, Mr Overholt lied to the reporter.
It was at this time, on my birthday, december 10th that my attorneys and I visited John Judnick in his office. He wanted all the other evidence I had, he had told my attorneys. He wished to question me about what I knew about the numerous transactions. We went into his office and he did not ask me one single question, but touted the importance of me working with him to get to the bottom of this. He dropped a neatly bound document that was about 6 inches thick on a desk in front of him, as if this represented his ongoing investigation into my allegations. My attorneys asked him for a copy of the contracts. He represented that the contracts had over 600 amendments and was volumnous in size and it would take some time to produce. We then asked him why “Team Jacobs” was not named in the lawsuit and his answer was “Jacobs who? I don’t know any company by that name.”
This was the end of our visit with Mr. Judnick and pretty much the start of them documenting me for my eventual termination on trumped up allegations. Allegations that they would only make to my attorneys after debating it and thinking about and seeing what proof they could dig up over the period of 8 months.
December 10 would also be the day where I posted my now infamous diatribe outlining this whole mess, complete with e-mail on legalpad.typepad.com
I immediately got calls from all over California from people in the judicical branch pledging to do something about what I had discovered and exposed. I also got some death threats, though by this time, I gave them no merit. I don’t know who the callers were. They were careful to use caller ID blocking and not identify themselves. I was hoping they would get to the bottom if it before I was fired so that I could keep my job. Things didn’t work out that way.
antonatrail
March 8, 2011
What an outrageous scenario. Heads need to roll …
Michael Paul
March 8, 2011
Just so I’m not accused of being ambiguous – and this is where my allegations may part ways with Mr. Wintermeyer, the state legislature has entrusted ten billion dollars worth of my tax dollars to a racketeering influenced corrupt organization called the California Administrative Office of the Courts and must now remove that money from their hands, dismantle the structure of the organization under which it thrives and clean house. If they have to pick up the phone and call the feds because their hands are tied then pick up the phone and call the feds.
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 8, 2011
Contracting fraud payoffs take on different forms. One form that has our interests piqued would be similar to the payoffs Senator Ted Stephens of Alaska was receiving……
JusticeCalifornia
March 8, 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens#cite_note-2
I tried to look him up, and his history is convoluted at best.
But I will say this. Who the heck has been in TWO plane crashes? One he survived (just before he married a much younger but very politically well connected woman with OIL/GAS/AVIATION ties–http://www.mayerbrown.com/lawyers/profile.asp?hubbardid=S258495510) and one he didn’t.
Check out credentials of the survivors of the second crash–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_de_Havilland_Canada_DHC-3_Otter_crash
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 8, 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_political_corruption_probe
Mr. Stevens had lots of remodeling done. Just like nearly every major player in the AOC.
JusticeCalifornia
March 8, 2011
JCW
When was the period of remodeling?
Before or after his first wife died in that first plane crash, before or after his second marriage to that much younger, very well-connected aviation lawyer? I do believe it was after. Correct me if I am wrong.
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 8, 2011
It was after, only a few years ago.
JusticeCalifornia
March 8, 2011
I daresay reporting bad players in the CA judicial branch can be a rough business.
Michael Paul reports death threats, a certain other high-profile court employee reports a focused break-in at that employee’s home, and I can report (and have memorialized to very many) that I have had way more than my fair share of extraordinary office security “incidents”, computer “incidents” and indirect but subtly threatening references to knowledge about my family–which is why I have, for years, elected to tell EVERYONE what I know, LOUDLY, IN WRITING.
So who/what are we dealing with? CA top judicial leadership, and/or organized crime, both, and/or others?
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 8, 2011
You’re dealing with an expert in organized crime who wears a robe and runs the whole show. No, not Chief Justice Mini-mimi. Someone with more power than her.
antonatrail
March 9, 2011
Wikipedia sure is different than my trusty, old Merriam-Webster!
If someone has become entrenched in their power throughout the years and using that power for evil purposes, God help us all, he/she needs to go! Do the feds hate California so much they enjoy watching us go down in flames?
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 9, 2011
We’re getting word that the other vendor, Aleut Global Solutions is experiencing mass labor unrest and is being sued for among other things, failing to adhere to prevailing wages, violations of FMLA and fired most of the staff that chose to organize for union representation.
The interesting twist behind this is that AGS is claiming tribal soverignty in trying to dispose of all claims against them.
Edited to add: Aleut had a contractors license and the principal resigned the company, taking said license with him. (Thomas Mistron)
Aleut then got another dumb sucker to come on board with his license, failing to disclose a half-dozen lawsuits that they were already a part of. Needless to state when this employee with a contractors license got word of all the litigation against AGS and saw his contractors’ license in jeopardy, he too resigned.
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 10, 2011
We’re also getting word that both current and former AGS Aleut Global Solutions and Jacobs/ABM/” Team Jacobs ” employees read this site. We encourage these employees to come forward and share with others here at Judicial Council Watcher.
judicialcouncilwatcher
March 12, 2011
JCW has reviewed a couple of studies and walked some project timelines in an effort to understand how the costs of some projects balloons beyond usual, customary and reasonable. Our analysis shows that as a matter of routine, studies are commissioned by the office of court construction and management in a purported effort to understand the problem and attach a price tag associated that understanding and whatever remedial effort is being proposed, which is typically and eventually attached to some work order.
Since the studies/proposals are incomplete, yet are accepted and approved that way by the office of court construction and management, they eventually are transformed into an incomplete scope of work with a large price tag associated. The slippery slope of performing construction or remediation in this manner is the AOC suffers from partial completion of projects before change orders increase the underlying price tag dramatically.