By Paola Adler

Sergio Perez became LADWP’s first ever Inspector General on May 9th. In this position, Perez is responsible for a broad range of authority and duties that protect the integrity of LADWP and uphold our corporate values that include transparency, efficiency and effectiveness.

Contact recently interviewed Perez to learn more about him and his new role at the Department.

Contact: Inspector General is a new position here at LADWP. Please describe your role?

Perez: The Inspector General works to protect the integrity of LADWP, with a focus on ensuring the public’s interest lies at the core of everything the agency does. Day-to-day, that means leading the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a team that will provide proactive assistance with ethics compliance, corporate performance and best practices, and work to receive, investigate, and/or refer complaints related to misconduct and fraud, waste and abuse. It all boils down to doing the necessary and hard work to make misconduct less likely by assessing existing policies and practices to ensure they are geared towards success and integrity. At its core, this means encouraging and supporting transparency, fairness and efficiency in everything my team touches so that the great work that is done at LADWP every day is front and center.

Contact: Tell us about yourself, your personal and professional background.

Perez: I am a proud native of Los Angeles who was born to two undocumented immigrants from Mexico. My upbringing was difficult – both of my parents worked (and continue working) in physically demanding, low-wage jobs and our housing was often unsteady. I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school, and I went on to study at U.C. Berkeley and then Yale Law School. I have an (almost crippling) addiction to music and bad reality television shows. I welcome recommendations for both categories.

As an attorney, I have worked in the field of accountability and public integrity for more than a decade. I previously served as a Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Director of Enforcement for the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, and as Executive Director for the Orange County Office of Independent Review, among other roles.

Contact: What are you most excited to accomplish at LADWP?

Perez: I am excited to help create, bolster and maintain necessary accountability processes so that we can prevent and identify misconduct at the earliest opportunity. When you do that, you save careers, money and reputations.

Contact: What do you think is your greatest challenge working at LADWP?

Perez: Since becoming the Inspector General, several LADWP staff have had frank and blunt conversations with me about their frustrations and lack of faith in past treatment of complaints and allegations regarding misconduct. Some have been very clear with me that their skepticism extends to me, and that they don’t expect much out of the team I’m building. I’m confident the work we’re doing now will shift those attitudes, but I know that will require a steady and unwavering commitment to independence, objectivity and effectiveness.

Contact: How will employees and divisions get to work with you and your office?

Perez: Fellow LADWP staff will work with the OIG in various ways. The great majority of staff will most routinely interact with the Ethics Compliance and Corporate Performance component of the OIG – which will provide training, ethics assistance and help improve systems and practices across the Department. Staff will also be able to file complaints related to fraud, waste and abuse with my staff which, as appropriate, will investigate those allegations. Finally, it is my goal that OIG staff will continuously and proactively engage in outreach with employee resource groups, labor representatives and individuals to ensure that the OIG is working to satisfy their needs. These efforts have already started, and I encourage anybody who’d like to connect to reach out to me.

Contact: How do you see LADWP in the next 5-10 years?

Perez: LADWP will continue to provide essential services to the people of Los Angeles in a manner that inspires confidence in its work. The day-to-day hard and honest efforts that make that possible will shine more brightly, and an established and effective Office of the Inspector General will do its part to maintain that by helping prevent and address integrity concerns.

Photo by Art Mochizuki.