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TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
Costa
FROM: PHIL BATCHELOR County
County Administrator
DATE: March 24, 1993
SUBJECT: ESTABLISHMENT OF DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S CONSUMER PROTECTION SPECIAL
REVENUE FUND
Specific Request(s) or Recommendation(s) & Background & Justification
RECOMMENDATIONS•
Approve the establishment of the District Attorney' s consumer protection
special revenue fund and direct the Auditor-Controller to establish such a
fund subject to the following regulations:
1. The fund is to be used for special consumer protection projects
that jointly have the approval of the District Attorney and the
Board of Supervisors.
2. No monies should be expended from the fund without the joint
approval of the District Attorney and the Board of Supervisors.
3 . These funds shall not be used to supplant other County general
funds.
REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION/BACKGROUND:
The District Attorney has requested that a consumer protection special
revenue fund be established in the County Auditor-Controller ' s Office subject
to the recommendation and regulations specified above. From time to time in
the settlement of cases prosecuted by a District Attorney' s Office in the
area of consumer fraud, and in the settlement of private consumer fraud cases
(such as class action suits) , settlements are reached, subject to court
approval, where funds are provided to a District Attorney' s Office to be
Continued on Attachment:—X— YES Signature:
Recommendation of County Administrator
Recommendation of Board Committee
Approve Other
Signature(s) :
Action of Board on: 2 Approved as Recommended—/-L—Other
Vote of Supervisors: I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE
AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN
Unanimous (Absent ) AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE
Ayes: Noes: ) BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON DATE SHOWN.
Contact: G. Roemer (646-4855) Attested: �, T,1
cc: Gary Yancey, District Attorney Phil Batchelor, Clerk of
County Auditor-Controller the Board of Supervisors
Jim Sepulveda, Dist. Atty's Officeand Co my Administrator
Ren6e Goldstein," if it
CAO-Justice System Programs By: , DEPUTY
Page 2
March 24, 1993
deposited in a special fund as specified above. This form of funding is
called 2y pres restitution; it is used to fund governmental consumer
protection when individual restitution in a particular case cannot be
determined or is not feasible. There is currently a private consumer fraud
case being settled in San Francisco Superior Court that would provide
approximately $20,000 to the District Attorney of this County if a special
consumer protection fund either exists or can be established. In order to
qualify for the court-directed settlement, the fund must be set up to handle
monies that are set aside for consumer protection and consumer fraud
prosecution purposes and not to fund normal District Attorney and County
operations that are normally funded out of the general fund. Examples of
what the monies in the fund could be used for are as follows: 1) funding of
undercover buy programs, statistical samplings, or market surveys such as
those used so successfully in the Sears case; 2 ) the hiring of expert
witnesses in consumer fraud cases to enhance the possibility of successful
prosecutions and reasonable monetary settlements; and 3 ) payment of civil
discovery costs such as depositions, records production and the like which
are also necessary for successful prosecutions.
Since it is difficult to specify in advance the wide range of special
projects for which such funds could be effectively employed, the District
Attorney is agreeable to the regulations for the use of these funds as
proposed in the above recommendation.