Posted on 09/13/2004 9:43:36 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO -- The state handed out millions in taxpayer dollars to community groups and local agencies without providing adequate oversight of how the money was spent, a newspaper reported Sunday.
A review of the process used by the state Parks and Recreation Department to distribute grants revealed questionable business practices, poor record keeping and scant follow-up by the state, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
State auditors are scrutinizing how the department has handled dozens of grants after the Chronicle reported last month that the nonprofit San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center received a $500,000 grant earmarked for a community center that was never built.
State and federal investigators are looking into whether part of that grant was illegally diverted into a 2002 campaign fund for Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who arranged for the center's grant when he was a state assemblyman.
"The problem for the department is essentially all they get is a bill," said state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, a member of a legislative committee overseeing an investigation into the case. "The money is already spoken for, and it may go to people who have no history of responsibly spending tax dollars. The system leads to the kind of thing that happened to Kevin Shelley."
Most of the $24.1 million in pork barrel allocations were secured by individual lawmakers for 84 private or nonprofit groups between 1999 and 2002, when the dot-com boom left the state government's coffers flush with surpluses.
A review of grant records as well as interviews with state officials and grant recipients found numerous instances of improper oversight:
-- A $492,500 construction project to build a Boys and Girls Club in Hayward was not competitively bid, and the club lost all its paperwork regarding the grant.
-- The state took one year to check how a $295,500 grant to improve the facades of Los Angeles businesses was spent. By that time, the phone number of the local group who received the grant had been disconnected.
State officials noted that they have little power to enforce whether the money designated for certain projects goes to its intended use. For example, a $246,250 grant to Little Tokyo Service Center in Los Angeles to help buy land for a community gymnasium instead went to staff salaries and consultant expenses.
"There is no statute requiring us to do anything other than cut a check," said Roy Stearns, a spokesman for the Parks and Recreation Department.
Or did they get blow'd up?
The State of CA like the Federal gov't needs to be audited by an independent auditor and NOW!
If we eliminated the waste fraud and abuse in CA and USA we could probably eliminate income taxes!!!
I know of someone who got a grant and took a trip to Europe with the money. It was supposed to be for college expenses.
Here's a SF Chron run at this , posted a bit earlier..
Millions in grants, scant oversight State is auditing funds to nonprofits (how Dem's get money)
Shutting off the spigot to these leeches would be a major step towards responsible government.
This is shaping up as a scandal involving Democrats giving grants to Democrats. Looks like at least some of the dough winds up in rat campaign coffers. The rest is probably just distributed as graft and kickbacks.
They were all Gray Davis' friends. The same people who did not want the recall.
But it was for the children. :)
The government state and feds need to be put out of the grant business.-
You would sure like to think the state AG would be all over this stuff, huh?
Oops! That's right.
He's a demRat and he was the bigdog in the assembly for a few years when money was flowing like cheap wine. .. lol
lol.. just one more reason I may come to regret not having kids. maybe.. ;-)
Really? I'm shocked.
Go check Caltrans...
then go check the fund dispersal at the various Conservancies run be the state......
Phew!!!!
Besides, they knew if he succeeded doing it as well as they have, he'd make a formidable challenger for Governor, just like Garamendi has been trying to do for years!!!
Agree. And all local, state and federal employees need to take pay cuts, and have their pensions reduced like most in the private sector have been forced to do.
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