Saturday, August 11, 2012

State of California special funds review leading to better oversight


The Daily Journal (San Mateo)/Hannah Dreier, 8/10/12.  "Lawmakers question special funds practices."
Assembly members used an oversight hearing as an opportunity to blast state agencies and the governor’s Department of Finance for accounting practices that led to hundreds of millions of dollars in discrepancies in hundreds of special funds.The hearing is the latest fallout from the attempt by some state parks officials to underreport nearly $54 million in two of those funds.

Sloppy accounting, we will improve
Lawmakers also discussed additional oversight measures, including establishing a special fund committee, new reporting practices and increased communication between the controller and finance.  The governor’s finance department reviewed the 560 funds last week and found no other instances of hidden money. However it did find discrepancies, sometimes in the hundreds of millions of dollars, in the amount reported to it and the state controller’s office by different government departments.

The Democratic governor said last week that he will require all state departments to follow new accounting procedures as a result of the parks department debacle.  Democratic Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, chair of the committee, concluded the two hour-long hearing with the hope that the scandal will ultimately help the state strengthen its financial practices and build trust with Californians.“It’s too bad that it took a crisis to get us to this place, but we are at this place and I think a lot of good things can come out of it,” he said."  Read Article.

Related articlesLos Angeles Times, 8/9/12. "California Lawmaker probe parks department, special funds". Officials in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration said their ensuing review of the special funds did not find any similar situations in which money was hidden. However, it did find $232.6 million that went unreported to lawmakers and administration officials while they were hashing out the state budget. Officials blamed errors, including typos, miscalculations and omissions."  
 
Fix Pacifica reprints, 7/28/12. "California park system found $54 million in two state accounts."

Posted by Kathy Meeh

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh I feel so much better. They didn't find any other instances of hidden money like the $54 million the State Parks were hoarding(while closing parks and fundraising) but they did find discrepancies in the hundreds of millions of dollars. What a relief.

Anonymous said...

Kinda begs the question...how about Pacifica? Would you let this group run the snack shack at Little League?

Anonymous said...

But there are still all the city and county special funds. Pacifica has quite a few.

Tom Clifford said...

The total discrepancies came to 618.3 million dollars. State officials are down playing this as much as they can so as not to upset the Brown tax measure. 10

Anonymous said...

More election year smoke and mirrors. Sooo glad we don't have any of that in Pacifica.

Anonymous said...

Pacifica supposedly has a fund from Comcast fees possibly containing a million or more.

Then there's the Water Dept. A kingdom unto itself. Every year they have a big holiday party for all employees and guests at a nice restaurant.

Kathy Meeh said...

Special Fund ".. discrepancies.." Tom Clifford, 7:32 AM

Yahoo, CBS News, Huffington all reported the accounting gap was $2.3 Billion, 7/27/12. "The state controller and the Department of Finance are $2.3 billion apart in their calculations of how much money is in hundreds of special funds kept by various state agencies, officials acknowledged Friday."

Since, then there have been other variations, including the $618.3 million, (I remember seeing that too). Following the Legislator's investigation of Special Fund accounting, as of 8/9/12, the total unreported amount is stated as $232.6 million (maybe). That related information from Los Angeles Times has been added to this article.

Steve Sinai said...

"Pacifica supposedly has a fund from Comcast fees possibly containing a million or more.

Then there's the Water Dept. A kingdom unto itself. Every year they have a big holiday party for all employees and guests at a nice restaurant."

It sure is easy to make anonymous, unsubstantiated allegations.

Anonymous said...

Then there's the remediation fees up at Frontierland Park. Rumored to be over a million bucks. Who's got it? Gone already like the sewer funds? And there's several million in the Ralph K. Davies Trust. The interest income is to be used only by PB&R but there is no interest income these days or very little. Use of the principle is possible with a unanimous council vote and I believe the principle is not restricted to PB&R. Just saying broke doesn't actually mean broke when politicians say it. And while we're checking the sofa cushions for change, make a bundle by giving the beach and the pier (and the plovers)back to the state along with all the maintenance, other costs and huge liabilities. Nobody will notice.

Anonymous said...

Comcast fund? Overstated and restricted funds. Water Dept a hard-partying kingdom unto itself? Yes it is and it's doing just fine.

Anonymous said...

Roll out the Gestapo! The NCCWD is having a Xmas Party at a nice restaurant. Shameful!
Disaster looms and our plucky council is avoiding anything heavy until after the election and yet someone is worried about the NCCWD having a Xmas party? You're a politician's answered prayer.