A study of the Los Angeles police department by management consultants (as reported in The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 1996) uncovered numerous practices that tended to decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of the force. Among the practices the report criticized and the costs it estimated were the following:

a. At shift change time, officers have to go through an elaborate sign-out procedure for their weapons, radios, and other equipment that takes about 30 minutes. The consultants estimated that the department-wide personnel costs for the procedure were the equivalent of 236 full-time officers.

b. Every four weeks, each officer is expected to complete forms requesting his or her desired time off for the following month. Then, several supervisory level officers manually create the deployment schedule. From there, the schedule is transcribed manually into the timebooks for all layers of management and into the city's payroll department. The line officers' time alone approached the equivalent of 51 full-time officers, to say nothing of the clerical and supervisory time.

c. All arrests have to be approved by the watch commander, meaning that arresting officers must drive the suspect to the station, locate the watch commander, get his or her approval, and then drive the suspect to the jail. Approval is automatic in virtually every case.

d. The paperwork involved in arresting a juvenile drunk-driving suspect requires the officer to enter the suspect's name 70 separate times. Those papers are then filed in several separate locations.

Assume that you are the auditor for the Los Angeles police department and that you uncovered all of the preceding in your audit. For each of the "production problems," write a paragraph that could be a part of a "management letter" to the chief of police for Los Angeles. Discuss the costs of the problems in terms of personnel costs and in less tangible terms, such as morale of the officers. Suggest at least one solution to the production problem for inclusion in the management letter. Remember that the solution must be palatable to the chief. In addition, anticipate and address the objections to changing the procedure. Be specific.