How the California Department of Parks and Recreation came to possess millions of unreported dollars sometime in 1996 “may never be fully understood,” the state Attorney General’s office reported last week. But sometime between 1999 and 2003 the merely suspicious became deliberate subterfuge, and for the next nine years, until the scandal broke last year, a parks fund that topped $29 million at one point sat hidden from view.   read more

As the Bush tax cuts rolled toward their 10-year, January 1 expiration date, California budgetmeisters were eyeing a potential windfall. A resumption of higher pre-2000 estate tax levels would generate billions of dollars in extra federal revenues, millions of which would be passed along to California through the resuscitated state estate tax credit that died in 2004 as part of the Bush tax cuts.   read more

Four years after the last group of investors, led by billionaire Sam Zell, extended years of asset extraction from the Los Angeles Times parent Tribune Co. by filing for bankruptcy, the company has emerged from Chapter 11 and is back in the marketplace.   read more

Although Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a cumulative $3.35 million in fines levied by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FIRA), they did not admit or deny any wrong doing. They also agreed to pay $1.13 million in restitution.   read more

California has lost its appeal for a waiver from No Child Left Behind, probably losing millions of school dollars for failing to respond directly to some of the federal government’s waiver requirements. The waiver requirements included the use of standardized testing to measure student achievement, and—the part California educators and lawmakers gagged on—the use of those student achievement scores to evaluate teachers and principals.   read more

Wells Fargo won a victory in federal court Wednesday for banks in California using a controversial method of charging debit accounts that allows them to generate more consumer overdrafts and lucrative fees.   read more

A decade-long effort to replace the poorly-connected computer systems that the California State Controller’s Office uses to pay approximately 294,000 civil service employees has run aground. In a 37-page letter to contractor SAP Public Services obtained by the Los Angeles Times, project administrator Jim Lombord said the $371-million system was “foundering and in danger of collapsing.” The letter said SAP missed nine of its 44 deadlines this year.   read more

The City of Oakland expressed satisfaction and pride―in its Parking Ticket Management Audit―for gains made in fiscal year 2010-11, but admitted “further improvements are needed.” One of those admitted needed improvements is ending the illegal practice of not returning fines to residents who inadvertently paid twice for the same parking infraction. The city picked up $316,000 in overpayments that way, despite state law that requires citizens be notified when tickets are paid more than once.   read more

San Bernardino municipal officials and bondholders heaved a sigh of relief in bankruptcy court on Friday when Judge Meredith Jury blocked the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) from suing the city in state court for missed pension payments.   read more

Governor Jerry Brown, perhaps sensing he was going to have a public relations problem on his hands, fired the public relations company that was gearing up for a $10 million promotion of the soon-to-be completed San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reconstruction.   read more

Although 462 California cities and 53 counties managed to comply with new state reporting requirements on salaries, pension benefits and other compensation, the city of Bell, whose massive overpayments to public officials inspired the rules, missed the October 31 filing deadline.   read more

State Controller John Chiang updated his public employee compensation website this week and Greg Johnson topped the list for all municipal employees in 2011 with a total compensation package of $677,172 granted him by the wealthy town of 5,000. His regular pay that year was $230,697, but his total wage compensation was fleshed out with a $446,475 parting gift when he was forced to resign in October 2011.   read more

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has at least $500 million invested in the company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre of 20 children and six adults.   read more

Even by California standards, where the average prison psychiatrist makes $300,000 a year, Dr. Mohammad Safi was doing exceedingly well―until he was suspended. The Afghan-educated doctor earned $822,302 in 2011, making him California’s highest-paid state employee. Most of Safi’s money, $503,000, was on-call pay for being available in case of emergency.   read more

Twelve years after the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) unsuccessfully begged the state to buy its beleaguered private toll road system, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer is launching an inquiry into whether they are financially viable.   read more

Only nine of the 7,238 whistleblower communications received by the California State Auditor over a 15-month period of time ended in substantiated allegations of improper governmental activities, but it would be hard to call it a failed enterprise.   read more