Betty Yee is California state controller, meaning she is tasked with “accountability and disbursement of the state’s financial resources.” As California is the state with the fifth-largest economy in the entire world, this is a hefty responsibility.
But what happens if the person in charge of the funds loses them? Let’s take a look.
Yee’s office issued a whopping 49 million checks in payments worth $320 billion in 2018. The state’s 2020 budget was $208.9 billion, but Yee’s office payments often cover multi-year obligations.
She is also “responsible for auditing all funds disbursed by the state and all claims presented for payments to [her office.]”
Because of her job’s responsibilities, Open the Books Chairman Adam Andrzejewski may be forgiven for being “mystified by the California State Controller’s claim to be ‘unable to locate or otherwise provide’ documentation of those large payments,” the Epoch Times reports.
“The State of California, State Controller’s Office does not maintain a centralized vendor contract database which would allow it to identify all contracts regardless of the agency awarding such contract,” Yee’s general counsel Richard Chivaro told Andrzejewski’s group in a November 2019 letter.
The letter came in response to requests by Open the Books beginning in 2013.
Open the Books sought documentation a “line-by-line state checkbook” of California’s massive state government spending.
“In fact, many state contracts are paid for directly by the contracting agency,” Chivaro continued. “This procedure allows the contracting agency to make such payments as expeditiously as possible thereby taking advantage of an early payment discount which may be available.”
“Moreover, the Controller’s Office receives literally thousands of claims for payment daily. Claims are batched by date received and are not segregated, logged or otherwise tracked by agency employee or payment type. Consequently, because of the way the claims are batched and processed by this office, we are unable to locate or otherwise provide you with the documents requested,” he added.
Thus, Open the Books is suing.
“Despite repeated attempts to obtain an adequate response from the Controller, Plaintiffs have instead faced at various points delay, silence, obfuscation, and inadequate justification for the agency’s refusal to provide a reasoned determination and responsive records,” the organization told the court.
“Plaintiffs first filed a CPRA request for state checkbook data in 2013 over six years ago but, to date and after repeated requests, the Controller has failed to disclose any relevant records.”
“COVID slowed our suit down, but we’re pushing for summary judgement now because we think we will win,” Andrzejewski told the Epoch Times. “We always knew California would be a dogfight.”
“We’ve sued two other states, we expect to win in California, and we’re undefeated in these suits,” he added.
Open the Books also sued Illinois and Wyoming, but required no litigation to get spending records from the other 47 states.
“We even get the checkbooks from the historically, systemically corrupt Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,” he said. “We do get the second set of books from there.”
The post CALIFORNIA CRUMBLES: Controller Can’t Find the Cash appeared first on Human Events.
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Yep, the corruption of liberals. We are liberal, we take hard working taxpayers money, but we never keep track of where we spend it. How does one spell “corruption”? Where is the Department of No Justice in the individual states and where is the Department of NO Justice in Washington?
So which California Prison was this Democrat party criminal released from before being elevatd to high office? Obviously, serving time for larceny and misappropriation of funds. If it’s not in her past, it needs to be in her future. What else do you expect your government employees to become when you open the prison doors to convicted social pathologies, and the people in power assume it’s open season of our money? No hunting licenses or other qualifications required.
YET You can bet, even WITH THIS level of corruption and fraud, NOT ONE dem will go to jail..
Do you Remember Obama gave Baltimore 1.8 billion dollars and that money Disappeared. No one ever answered where the money went and no investigation by the democrats.
Not at the moment.. When did that happen?
California is the state with the fifth-largest economy in the entire world,
So why are they bankrupted? Why did the Democrat Party bail them out with taxpayers money??
Answer: The State of California is under the reign of the dishonorable, dishonest, unethical, immoral, corrupt Socialist Democrat Party.
Governor Newsome, do you have any comment?
“She’s so fine, there’s no tellin’ where the money went,
She’s all mine, there’s no other way to go.”—Simply Irresistible by Robert Palmer
It seems that no matter HOW MUCH fraud they have, ‘everything is fine’..