SACRAMENTO — When the paint began to peel off the sides of her house in the San Bernardino Mountains, Patricia West protested to the board that regulates California's contractors.
A board-appointed examiner concluded that the work by Steve Kanallakan's construction company was substandard.
Also, a small claims court judge faulted the contractor over a bathroom make-over in Dara Elizondo's Laguna Hills house. The judge awarded her $4,075.
But it was not until July, nine months after complaints were filed, that the Contractors State License Board alleged that Kanallakan's firm had violated 13 construction laws. When the case will be resolved is unknown; until then, the company can continue to do business.
"It just amazes me," Elizondo said. "They took too long. They lost my trust in them to protect me. In my opinion, there's no reason to have a contractors board at this point."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review task force agrees. Earlier this month, the group -- charged with reconfiguring state government -- called for eliminating the board and letting a consumer affairs department with " 'chain of command' accountability" to the governor investigate incompetent and unscrupulous contractors.
But the difficulties at the contractors board provide a telling example of how the task force's emphasis on the architecture of state government obscures a more pressing problem for many state regulators: their dearth of resources.
After losing a fifth of its investigators since 1999, the contractors board has been forced to curtail much of its enforcement activity.
While residential building permits have skyrocketed by 40% in the last five years, the board has opened about 20% fewer investigations. Routine complaints of shoddy workmanship can languish until multiple grievances pile up.
The cases the board does examine take 169 days on average to conclude -- 49 days longer than board guidelines recommend. And the board has gutted some of its most innovative efforts to catch unlicensed contractors before they rip off homeowners.
Though the state has been in a fiscal crisis, much of this was avoidable. Like other regulators, the board receives its money from fees paid by the licensed professionals. That should have made it impervious to dips in the state's tax coffers.
But then-Gov. Gray Davis included the board in a blanket hiring freeze imposed on state agencies in 2001. Each year, vacated positions were abolished automatically.
