More funny money business with State Parks
By Jon Ortiz, Sacramento Bee
State investigators have found unreported cases of an illicit program that let state parks employees trade leave time for cash and, despite extreme media and government scrutiny, “still has not done enough to prevent such practices from occurring,” according to an audit released Tuesday.
The 43-page report sampled operations at five park districts within the $574 million Department of Parks and Recreation and found a budgeting system so disorganized that district administrators make an educated guess at how much money they’ll receive when the fiscal year starts each July. They reset their budgets, sometimes several months later, when they find out how much money they have.
Expenditure tracking also is so poor that four of the five districts had their own systems for watching their expenses.
Who knew? You have to wonder how messed up the financial projections for the reconfigured golf course at Washoe Meadows are. You’d be led to think that the new golf course will solve parks financial problems. Of course that wouldn’t be until after American Golf reimburses itself for building the course. This looks like another boondoggle in the making at taxpayer expense.
On the news last night, the Parks spokesperson was talking about “cashouts” as if they were so common, we all knew what they are. I had no idea such things existed. Taxpayer dollars; easy come, easy go.
Should we be surprised they have not a clue how much it actually costs to run any one park? Probably not. There is NO accountability in state government.
Tell me again why you keep volunteering to raise your own taxes to give these people MORE money?
Auditors turned up four additional instances of inappropriate leave buybacks between May 2010 and March 2011 that totaled $16,394. Parks officials couldn’t document the rationale for the largest payment, $8,721. Payroll records suggest the money bought down 340 hours of time an employee banked for extra time worked.
this may have not been allowed by internal regs (its really hard to tell from the article, nothing cites the regs) but there is no insinuation here that these employees did not work for what the got – get a life, all organizations have audit problems and this is chicken scratch considering the total state budget. If you just dont think parks represent a public good deserving of societal support, then just hang out in shopping malls constantly texting your so called “friends” (oblivious to all the tax breaks that helped get that mall located in your town!)
This article didn’t go into as much detail as the network news did about all the new money problems involved here.
But regardless, do you REALLY believe that just because the parks department represents a ‘public good deserving of societal support,’ that it absolves them of all the graft and corruption that the department has been CAUGHT committing? You actually can say that because they do some good stuff for people, they should be allowed to rob the tax payers blind, and continue to operate with no guidelines or controls on how and what they spend? That’s absurd.
“Giving power and money to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” PJ O’Rourke
no not at all – but mismanagement of funds and incorrect budget accounting is not necessarily the same as corruption. Even the squirreling away of funds when parks were slated for closure is not the same as using public funds for personal gain. Likewise if folks got cash payments instead of time off for overtime worked, this is just the reverse of time off in lieu of overtime. This may not be allowed or the regs on this may even be confusing? This isn’t graft and corruption, such as giving non-competitive bids to companies you have a financial stake in ala Halliburton. I will look for some details, but I don’t see where any of this elevates to where crimes have been committed. This type of stuff happens all the time and that is why there are audits.
Wow. Desperate excuses for government abuse of taxpayer funds.
I’m shocked, LJ, shocked. Not.
These continued shenanigans are no surprise. When I worked as a seasonal lifeguard at a State Beach for the California Department of Parks & Recreation years ago, it was common practice for the hourly lifeguards to sit in the office on rainy days, reading the newspapers and comic books and so on, clocked in, so the agency wouldn’t lose its funding for the following year.
The clueless lemmings are still in charge, the only thing that’s changed is taxes which are forever higher.