SACRAMENTO – The California State Auditor’s office has released their long awaited report on allegations the Metropolitan Water District failed to promote a fair and equitable workplace, anf failed to promote transparency in the organization.
The report was released by Acting State Auditor Michael Tilden, CPA who cites “decades” of problematic hiring practices.
MWD’s decisions about imposing discipline disproportionately favored managers, and in some cases involving misconduct by a manager, we found evidence that MWD management may have improperly influenced the disciplinary process.
CA State Auditor/Twitter

Our audit of MWD’s personnel and hiring practices highlighted the following:
- » MWD has not dedicated sufficient attention or resources to its EEO policy or its EEO office, leaving employees subject to dysfunctional and potentially unsafe workplace circumstances for unnecessarily long periods of time.
- » Despite having known for nearly 20 years that its hiring practices failed to protect applicants from potential discrimination, the procedures remain decentralized and informal.
- MWD’s hiring process gives significant discretion to individual hiring managers, lacks transparency, and cannot demonstrate that hiring decisions are equitable.
- MWD’s hiring data also show that even recently, MWD has hired qualified female candidates and people of color at significantly lower rates than their male and white counterparts.
- » MWD’s ethics office remains out of compliance with state law, including the requirement that the office independently investigate allegations of ethics violations.
- Our review identified instances in which MWD’s management has interfered with the ethics office’s independent functions.
- » MWD has long been aware of serious issues threatening the habitability of its employee housing, but it has not created processes for addressing employee maintenance requests effectively.
- It has also struggled to implement a comprehensive, long‑term solution to address significant issues with employee housing.
MWD’s decisions about imposing discipline disproportionately favored managers, and in some cases involving misconduct by a manager, we found evidence that MWD management may have improperly influenced the disciplinary process.
CA State Auditor/Twitter
Read the full audit by clicking here.
1 Comment
LET’S ALL REMEMBER THIS AT ELECTION TIME,
Please vote for NO PERSON who has permitted, encouraged, or silently went with the flow in any elected office.