Last month, the Sacramento Bee submitted a records request for written communications to or from California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and his chief of staff regarding a batch of around 1,500 registration errors. Padilla’s office responded to the request with 268 pages of material, but half the pages were newsletters Padilla received from news […]

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. […]

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 […]

In late January, the first formal state audit of the California bullet train project was authorized by the legislature’s joint audit committee. The audit was authorized after the rail authority disclosed that the cost of building the first 119 miles of track in the Central Valley would cost $10.6 billion, which is a 77 percent […]

A California audit in 2016 revealed that over 26,000 people over the age of 100 in the state had blue disabled placards. According to state officials, there are only about 8,000 people older than 100 in California, and not many of them are driving anymore. The placard allows people to park at any street meter […]

According to an investigative report released earlier this month, officials in the University of California president’s office improperly interfered with a state audit of UC finances, instructed campuses not to “air dirty laundry” in an audit survey, and misled the regents about why they did it. An independent investigation by former state Supreme Court Justice […]

A former executive at a California tax agency alleges that he was punished for cooperating with criminal and financial investigations into the Board of Equalization and has decided to appeal his recent termination. Mark DeSio, who was the agency’s former communications director, claims in his complaint that he was threatened by elected Board of Equalization […]

Last month, state regulators seized troubled Santa Rosa-based State Assistance Fund for Enterprise, Business and Industrial Development Corporation (SAFE-BIDCO) and announced plans to liquidate the state-chartered nonprofit. The 36-year-old organization, which is devoted to helping small businesses obtain loans, had been under scrutiny after a scathing state audit in April found that it risked going […]

There is a new scandal involving the University of California and its state audit. The audit had revealed that there is $175 million in secret reserves in UC President Janet Napolitano’s office that was not disclosed to the public or the governing Board of Regents. The new scandal involves interference in the audit by the […]

A new state audit that was recently released is claiming that the California State University system has unjustifiably hired more management personnel than is needed over the years and has been paying them raises more than needed. The Sacramento Bee reports: There were nearly 4,000 managers in the CSU system during the 2015-16 academic year, […]