In 2004, voters passed the Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63) to help counties pay for the treatment of the mentally ill by taxing high-income residents. The proposition has generated billions of dollars to the counties across the state, but much of it has remained unspent. According to the Los Angeles Times, $1.6 billion was […]

An analysis by the San Diego Union-Tribune found that single-family homes serviced by the city’s water department were collectively overcharged by over $2 million last year. An internal audit of the Public Utilities Department was done after several customers started complaining last year that their water bills had increased dramatically, but authorities downplayed the situation. […]

In July, California sanctioned ten veteran charities that allegedly misused millions of dollars in donations. The worst alleged offender was Help the Vets, which reportedly misused $20 million over four years and did not help veterans. According to an injunction released in July by the Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Trade Commission, some of […]

According to POLITICO, two prominent female Democratic legislators in the #MeToo movement donated a good amount of money to Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia. Assemblywoman Garcia is the subject of an ongoing sexual harassment investigation. The two lawmakers who donated money are Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, chair of the Joint Legislative Subcommittee on Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response, […]

According to an audit released last month, a California DMV data operator slept three hours a day at her desk for three years and despite complaints from her colleagues, the department failed to take disciplinary action. Investigators from the California State Auditor’s office were told by witnesses that the DMV employee consistently slept at her […]

Apparently, even professionals in the San Francisco metro area can qualify as low-income due to the expensiveness of the area. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annually assesses income limits for how much a person can make per year and still qualify for certain types of federal housing assistance. HUD’s fiscal 2018 […]

The Los Angeles City Council approved a construction and financing plan for a $708 million downtown office tower for city workers. The site of the new office tower is the Los Angeles Police Department’s former headquarters, Parker Center. The council voted unanimously to back a public-private development model that involves hiring an outside development team […]

According to the Sacramento Bee, the California Department of Motor Vehicles cited 2,485 people this fiscal year for abusing the cards that are designed to accommodate people with limited mobility. The DMV issued 1,625 citations the previous fiscal year, which is a 58 percent increase. The disabled placard violations are misdemeanors that carry fines of […]

Last month, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it has granted Nestle a new three-year permit to continue operating its bottled water pipeline in the San Bernardino National Forest. The agency stated that the permit has been offered to the company “with measures to improve the watershed’s health” along Strawberry Creek. Nestle’s special use permit […]

Apparently, a new data leak could affect hundreds of millions of Americans and it could be worse than the Equifax data leak that affected almost 150 million people. A security researcher claims that Exactis, a Florida-based marketing and data collecting firm, leaked detailed information on individual adults and businesses. It is estimated that the leak […]