California State University reimbursed a high-ranking official in the chancellor’s office $152,441 for expenses he should not have billed to the university, according to a report released Thursday by the state auditor…Howle called attention to Ernst’s frequent global travel, including trips to Amsterdam, Singapore, London and Melbourne, Australia…’We found the official took trips that did not appear to have a clear or demonstrable benefit to the state or university. In addition, there was no need for the official to regularly attend non-university events, particularly given the costs involved.
“…[T]he state wasted $8 million during the past two fiscal years on penalties for bills that weren't paid on time,” according to an October 2009 Los Angeles Times investigative report. “An internal audit of the state Parks and Recreation Department last year found that it had incurred late payment penalties of $232,000 in the preceding two years…An accounting error by the Fresno County Auditor's Office led to the county overpaying schools $34 million in property tax revenue over four years, the Fresno Bee reports…Overpaying schools is one thing, but how about $22 million taxpayer dollars to put up paroled sex offenders in apartments and motels? According to a Contra Costa Times report, “Some parolees have received housing assistance for more than two years after being released from prison.”
Incredible! Millions of dollars could have been saved just by using the expertise on UC campuses. The system has, for example, multiple senior administrators with Ph.D.s who are getting nice paychecks for their expertise, the Budget Office staff gets paid to solve budget problems, and the renowned Haas School of Business has a world class lineup of business experts and graduate programs in financial engineering, global management, accounting, financing, and operations management.
Two of the state’s largest departments spent more than $5.5 million on new cars and trucks this year only to leave them idle and gathering dust for months. One department still has pickups and larger trucks parked in its yard that it bought during 2006, 2007and 2008…The Department of General Services spent $1.2 million on 50 new hybrid Toyota Prius sedans in February, with state agencies committed to buying only 13 of them, state purchasing records show. The Bee found and photographed the cars on the top floor of the state garage near the Capitol, where they were parked for months. All were moved after The Bee asked about them.
“Santa Clara County’s move to charge astronomical fees for public access to its electronic maps has backfired in a $500,000 legal settlement. Government watchdogs say it is the largest payment of its kind in a California records disclosure dispute...”
“The university disclosed its findings in response to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed …by a medical researcher, who claimed that she was retaliated against after she reported $175,000 was improperly charged to grant accounts...”
“the Board President Kin-Shree Maufas charged $4,300 on the district’s Diners Club card for a wide range of personal purchases. They included more than $2,000 for a cultural exchange trip to China. $196 for tickets to the Florida Epcot theme park, $40 for black Crocs, a $125 car battery and a $162 car windshield, $160 in U.S. Passport processing fees, a $37 medical visit in Los Angeles and $3 for apple iTunes.”
“In a statement on the California State University’s website, the CSU Board of Trustees say they have raised fees and ordered furloughs in response to ‘one of the greatest fiscal emergencies in the history of California.’ Still, the CSU campuses are adding to the cost of educating students by continuing to allow faculty to take paid sabbaticals-including sabbaticals dedicated to writing books on the afterlife, illustrating children’s books, writing operas and painting.”
State Auditor Elaine Howle blasted the Department of Corrections for skyrocketing costs. The department’s budget increased nearly 32 percent, to 10 billion, from 2005 to 2008 even as the number of prison inmates declined.
Teacher unions’ have been unwilling to renegotiate current contracts. “Districts across California have asked their teacher unions to consider furloughs and one-time salary freezes in order to backfill budget shortfalls. But those concessions haven’t been easy to come by….” Elk Grove Unified laid-off seven teachers in May, but will issue $5.2 million in raises to teachers and counselors for the upcoming year. Sacramento City Unified laid-off 281 teachers in May and is considering furloughs and salary freezes for the 2010-11 school year. And yet, step increases costing $2.5 million already have been approved. Moreover, because of budget cuts, Sacramento City Unified has increased class sizes and cut summer school for elementary and middle-school students.
Under duress from California labor unions and union-backed politicians, the University of California system is funding a labor institute at the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses that trains union organizers and produces biased studies to support the union political agenda...UC President included $4 million for the labor institute in his proposed budget approved by the UC Board of Regents. This amount could have protected more than 6,000 resident undergraduate students from the fall 2009 semester fee increase of $662.”
“The financial shortfall is exacerbated by pension spiking, where public employees are allowed to count perks, such as unused vacation time and sick leave, toward their final compensation just before they retire. Adding those factors raises total pension benefits substantially.”
The results of over-zealous judges ruling in favor of onerous regulations on farmers under the guise of protecting the environment has “included damage to permanent crops, including orchards and vineyards that sequester carbon and help combat global warming, job losses, reductions in public school enrollments, greater toxic pollution of farmland, groundwater overdraft, increased electricity consumption and air pollution from dust caused when farmland is fallowed for lack of water. About 500,000 acres have gone unplanted this year, about 800 square miles of the world’s most fertile farmland.”
“At a time when most Californians are forced to do more with less, one might ask why public employees have a pension system that is far more generous than anything private-sector workers can expect. Union politics is a quick answer.”
“In 2006, voters approved Measure I, which allocated $15 million in bond funds for revocations and new construction at South Coast schools. Some of that work was completed last summer, much of it out of compliance with state codes…The report notes an estimated $5.3 million of bond money has been spent on temporary school buildings that won’t be there longer than five years.”
“Turbo Tax software, large digital TV screens, a GPS navigation system, a digital camera and a laptop are among the items Contra Costa elected leaders have purchased with the county’s professional development perk…[a] former county administrator also bought a new computer system one month before he retired and several managers purchased televisions with the money intended to reward top managers and elected officials who seek to enhance their workplace skills.”
The current process for firing ineffective teachers is so burdensome and biased in favor of protecting teachers “at all costs” that administrators decide to keep them on staff in order to avoid the high cost of discharging them…Estimates…based on data provided by the school district found that the practice cost more that $2.1 million over the past six years.
“Of the approximately 525,000 cases that currently involve cash assistance from CalWORKS, only 22% are meeting the minimum program requirements…. Make sure every Californian getting a CalWORKS check has to check in just twice a year so a supervisor can keep tabs on their progress. If they make zero progress, their benefits run out after two years rather than the current five. By doing this, we could save $850 million over the next two budget years, and ultimately $1.5 billion per year – and we could save the CalWORKS program.”
A recently released audit found that “the [Los Angeles County] Probation Department exceeded its overtime budget by an average of 126 percent over the past five years. ... All told, the 6,400-member department exceeded its overtime by an average of $9.8 million over the last five fiscal years.”
“The Natomas Unified School District purchase of 41 acres of farmland for six times its value in 2007…and also found that a lawyer representing the school district in the purchase did not reveal he had a conflict of interest until three months after escrow closed. A senior property appraiser from the California Office of Real Estate Appraisers who testified before the grand jury said the property was actually worth $50,000 to $60,000 an acre in 2007, for a total value of about $2 million, not $13.3 million that was paid.”
“San Jose Unified decided to purchase an expensive pizza machine at $720,000. Then took pizza off the menu…The district has to cut $29 million from the budget by the end of next year. Add up the initial purchase price of the Pizzamatic and all the other repair costs related to the pizza machine and you have a $4.2 million bill! For that kind of money, they could have bought 28 olympic-sized swimming pools or more than 200 baseball fields.”
“The just-named new chancellor, Linda Katehi, will earn a great deal more, $400,000. She also will get a $100,000 relocation allowance, moving costs, [and] a car allowance of almost $9,000 a year… This kind of pay at a public university would be excessive even during flush economic times. But during an economic bust, it’s unconscionable. It comes as students in the college class of 2009 can expect lower wages for a decade.”
Wouldn’t it be nice to get paid big bucks to quit your job? Unfortunately for taxpayers, that is precisely what is happening in the city of Vallejo…."The city of Vallejo reached a tentative agreement to pay its city manager $390,000 to resign, marking yet another bitter divide in a city that filed for bankruptcy almost a year ago…Tanner had been a lightning rod for criticism because of his salary - $341,000 annually – which made him the fourth-highest paid city manager in the state, even though Vallejo has a population of only 117,000."
“for seven years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has paid Matthew Kim a teaching salary of up to $68,000 per year, plus benefits. Every school day, Kim’s shift begins at 7:50 a.m., with 30 minutes for lunch and ends when the bell at his old campus rings at 3:20 p.m. He is to take off all breaks, school vacations and holidays, per the district agreement with the teacher’s union. All this while, unbelievably, “At no time is he to be given any work by the district or show up at school.”
Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle posed this question, “How many BART workers does it take to fix a broken train seat?” Two--and that is no joke.” The Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) won’t win any awards for efficiency—in fact, it could be the poster child for government waste. Its motto must be “the more the merrier”--more workers doing the same thing, more money spent doing the same job, and more money paid to its executives.
It's been said, "[N]othing is worse, or more of a breach of the social contract between citizen and state, than for government officials, bureaucrats, and agencies to waste the money entrusted to them by the people they serve." This is certainly true. But, clearly, it is not the motto of at least one public employee who must believe taxpayer dollars exist for her own personal pleasure.
Historically, California has been known for its gold, the lure of which attracted pioneers and prospectors from far and wide in search of wealth and opportunity. Today, however, the “Golden State” motto might more accurately refer to the generous “golden parachutes,” granted to public employees. A particularly sad example for taxpayers: the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations has paid over a million dollars to fired employees.
During these tough budget times, many school districts are finding ways to maximize funding going into the classroom. That’s precisely why parents should be outraged that at least one district is using tax dollars to keep a teacher out of the classroom.
The “Golden Years” have just become a little brighter for some special university employees. With looming budget cuts, reducing workforce costs is a sound administrative solution. However, the benefits for a number of University of California employees will surprise you. According to the Sacramento Bee (Decembe r 6, 2008), “16 employees (were) paid a total of $682,431 to leave jobs in the UC President's Office.”
Los Angeles is no stranger to government waste, fraud and mismanagement. Sadly, yet another example of Los Angeles government officials’ appetite for wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money has come to light.
While taxpayers struggle to make ends meet, some creative bureaucrats in a little known agency are misusing taxpayers’ hard-earned money for dubious purposes. They are investing in private industries that do nothing to provide a public benefit and are using the money for political purposes, which is prohibited by California law.
The San Diego Community College District offers yet another example of how government officials cost taxpayers millions of dollars unnecessarily. In this case , the district costs taxpayers more by simply not acting on decisions to purchase land in a timely manner.
With reckless abandon, Los Angeles city leaders gave payroll increases and lucrative compensation packages for city workers, which can be directly attributed to the $406 million budget deficit they are now facing for fiscal year beginning in July. Sadly, city leaders knew they were putting Los Angeles’ future into financial jeopardy by agreeing to the payroll raises last year—but did so anyhow.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the state’s biggest and second-largest school district in the nation with more than 700,000 students, known for incompetence and corruption, has yet again, come under investigation for spending an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars on questionable contracts – while the district, not to mention the state, is facing historic budget deficits.
Back in May 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state agencies to expedite the sale of an estimated $5 billion in surplus state properties. It was an ambitious plan designed to help the state raise money it badly needed.
Every politician wants an all-star staff but must work within the means of funding to do so in an honest manner. San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom obviously disagrees with this practice. As his behavior transcends any kind of spending limitations or accountability set by law, city agencies lose money and the city’s frustration grows.
As California and its citizens worry about the bad economy and massive budget deficit facing the state, the University of California continues to run an island paradise for a few students and professors, subsidized with taxes and student tuition.
Here’s some exciting news for those in search of a very, very alternative energy source. We are anticipating the greatest advance in renewable energy since the windmill or solar panels – power generated by breast-feeding. It was, however, the only conclusion we arrived at when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power revealed its latest project.
Each year, CalTrans spend millions cleaning the state’s highways. One item that CalTrans is finding more and more of – urine filled-bottles. Yes, apparently some idiotic drivers like doing number one in the number two lane and throwing bottles of their urine alongside highways.
San Francisco ’s City Hall is going to install a ten-foot-long chunk of history and it’s projected to cost over $1.1 million dollars. This new wheelchair ramp has to be gold-gilded Yellow Brick Road that leads to the Land of Oz. How else can one explain the extravagant costs.
After years of litigation – costing millions of taxpayer dollars – the California Department of Education has finally settled with a whistle-blower turned former employee. This whistle-blower claimed retaliation by the Department and former Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin when he reported massive fraud in the department.
