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How "Accounting Mistakes" Cost California Taxpayers $32 Billion This Year
Spend more than 30 minutes watching TV in California and you will be bombarded by politicians proclaiming they single-handedly balanced the budget, brought prosperity back to the Silicon Valley alone, and turned water into wine. Yet, oddly, there is one thing none of them seem too quick to admit to. As CBS reports, the state office in charge of keeping track of California taxpayers’ money made tens of billions of accounting mistakes. CBS added it up and came up with a big number: $31.65 billion in errors. That’s more than the gross domestic product of Iceland and Jamaica combined.
Controller John Chiang’s office is the state’s financial watchdog, but an audit by the Bureau of State Audits claims the office’s accounting is off by billions of dollars.
The audit revealed:
- $7.7 billion – Understated federal trust fund revenues and expenditures
- $653 million – Overstated general fund assets and revenues
- $8 billion – Overstated California State University’s bond debt
- $9.1 billion – Reporting error that understated a public building construction fund
- Also there was a deferred tax-revenue figure posted as $6.2 billion when it was actually $6.2 million.
All told, that’s more than $31 billion in mistakes.
Sacramento State accounting professor John Corless agrees with auditors saying those glaring mistakes should have been caught by somebody.
"Someone’s not using their equipment right, and they’re not using their heads,” he said.
Republican consultant Mitch Zak is calling for an investigation.
“It’s offensive as a taxpayer,” he said. “There’s no consideration it appears if they misstate or mismanage my tax dollars that there’s any retribution.”
Chiang is running for state treasurer. His aides refused to go on camera for this story.
They said they concur with the assessment, and they blame high staff turnover and a lack of qualified staff, budget cuts, and late and incorrect data from numerous agencies.
Of course, we are sure that no one knows anything about it; no one is responsible for the errors; no one is accountable for the missing money; but a full-scale probe-y investigation will be launched... well played government. Doesn't matter after all - it's not their money.
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No prob. Everyone will keep obeying them just the same.
Accounting mistakes? BS!!!
Perhaps just a little creative financial engineering.
Just wait. SAT800 will be along soon to blame it all on capitalism.
Last week we were all laughing at France buying a bunch of trains that wouldn't fit through their stations (for which nobody got fired). Now it's The Peoples Republik of Kalifornia losing billions (for which nobody will be fired)
It's EVERYWHERE that socialism/statism exists. Accountability is antithetical to those types of regimes. By definition they are incompatible with accountability for their actions since they exist contrary to the will of those they rule/govern over. They can only exist in a power culture mutually committed to enriching a few at the expense of the many. Corruption is REQUIRED in those situations or the whole system fails.
.
"Of course, we are sure that no one knows anything about it; no one is responsible for the errors; no one is accountable for the missing money; but a full-scale probe-y investigation will be launched..."
Just a small microcosm of the Obama administration.
(And Bush, and Clinton, and Bush again, and Reagan, and .....)
http://www.sco.ca.gov/ard_state_cafr.html
dig in
@ref yo! Damn it!
Corruption is a feature of the system. Not a bug.
So is denial of a problem, until the people revolt and hang you from a tree.
Just exactly, when does that happen?
Theft is the system.
They didn't say anything about losses, a state university now has $8 billion less of bond debt, it was $31 billion of mistakes. Similar to the one you just made, but has actual money involved.
The University of California was the largest single contributor to Obama's campaign in 2012.
yes, and he is a "scientist"...did I mention that he is a scientist.
"That’s more than the gross domestic product of Iceland and Jamaica combined."
What a bunch of "jerks" doing the accounting.
Accounting "mistake" my ass!! That's REALLY "Organized Crime" is what that is!!!
CH1 -- I was scanning the audit items mentioned and then listened to the CBS report... The CBS news report says that all the audit issues were fixed before the final budget submittal. And in looking at the error items themselves, most of the big mistakes were to the benefit of the state (a conservatively low number for revenues, a conservatively high number for debt, etc). So it is probably incorrect to think that the CA budget was submitted showing that they are $31B "better" than real. It looks like one of the pols running for office was using these mistakes to show that he is the better candidate... regards - esf7
That's no big deal its only like 16 basket ball teams. Did I happen to mention that California by itself is the 75th largest economy in the world.
Trickle down fraud. Actually more like a river these days.
KickIce:
+1
Remember how Rummy announced the Pentagram was missing $2.3 TRillion, the day before 9-11? Story soon forgotten. Guess something more critical happened the next day.
"River of Fraud," that is a deluge, few seem to see coming - except here at Ice Station ZH
Actually it's somewhere around the 8th to 10th largest economy in the world. Back in the glory days of the '70s I believe it climbed all the way to 5th.
But, but, those imaginary revenues and understated expenses were the only things keeping the unicorn budget balanced.
Ah, well, human beings make mistakes. That's why every pencil comes with an eraser.
Q: How does an accountant deal with constipation?
A: He works it out with a pencil.
An oldie but a goodie!
Teh gross domestic product of Jamaica?!
Perhaps you haven't heard of hookers and blow, let me school ya.
According to the way they calculate Italy's GDP, Jamaica has the highest in the world.
This is pretty much the same way the Soviet Union ran for 70 years. Californians oughtta be proud... LOL
Send in Linda Ronstadt!
I bet her math is better than Jerry Brown's.
Jerry Brown has it under control; his planned Bullet train from Mexico to the LA ‘Safety Zone’ should be a real boost to their economy.
A billion here, a billion there, and suddenly you're talking real money.
The meme needs to be updated for the current inflationary environment. It's now a trillion here, a trillon there, and suddenly you're talking real money.
" That’s more than the gross domestic product of Iceland and Jamaica combined."
Not when you count the contribution from hookers and drugs.
Gawd! Moonbeams during the day are "prohibited". Chrome "dome" Brown is as ass-backwards as his father was!
Reason Foundation - California Has a Transportation Spending Problem, Not a Transportation Revenue Problem
The California Local Government Finance Almanac
Distressed Cities and the Lessons of California
California Drought Cost Nears $2 Billion
This shit goes on and on! If Californika is so solvent then why do they release convicted "child molestors" and "illegal immigrant murdurers" back into the general population?
1,400 'lifers' released from California prisons in last 3 years - CBS News
But Californians will re-elect Brown. Who is the stupid one? I think Californians like electing liars, because they know they can NOT handle the TRUTH. Kick the can folks, this is the new age American Way! Let the kids pay for it. Making your kid walk a mile to get home is child abuse, but the financial debt is not?
In order to define the "New Normal" we have to deconstruct the "Old Normal" in people's minds.
it's not stupid if you're a parasite, which over 50%+ of Cali is. so nothing will change with the gigantic money sinkhole until it finally implodes. then the parasites just find a new host. which is why you shouldn't be allowed to vote unless you're a net positive tax payer.
I agree +100. My vote and the welfare queen are equal? How can a system like that not eventually collapse?
Then Mexico will build a super security fence along the boarder like the Great Wall of China to keep the Brown/Obama Free Shit Army out.
What's really fucked up is that most of the inland is pretty conservative. But the population centers of Los Angeles and San Francisco, along with most of the left coast out people the rest of us. They are the ones that benefit from rail, buses, and programs. Those of us in the interior see little of that other than the exports from the coast of section 8, welfare, and other social diseases. (In many cases encouraged by the city programs and actually exported due to generally lower costs in our area.)
That's why I thinik the plan to split this shit-hole, failed state, may succeed. Someone did their homework on the proposed lines.
"That's why I thinik the plan to split this shit-hole, failed state, may succeed."
It will never happen. As the parasites need the working half to support them. They will block any effort to split the state.
Another example of how the citizens of CA are just dumber than shit:
"Someone’s not using their equipment right, and they’re not using their heads,” he said.
Instead try:
i. weather's fault
ii. Bush did it
Get elected/appointed/reappointed. This isn't calculus and while calculus can be hard it's only because there's a drought and dehydration leads to decreased brain function. [did you see it?]
And you don't thing the Feds have atleast that many screw ups laying around? I think it should be the citizens of the U.S.A. are dumber than shit for putting up with their criminal governments at every level.
Actually its because of all the smoke haze from the medical marijuana drifting around Sacramento.
A devil on the wrong side of nature again, do you out at night and play demon tricks on normal citizens after conversing here?
When the state makes a million dollar error, it's their problem....when they make a 32 billion dollar error, it's your problem.
When you lie to the government it's a felony (perjury for example). When the government lies to us it's called "politics".
I have a small business in California.
And I wonder how much mileage I'd get out of, "Sorry Dept. of Business Oversight. My bad in screwing up the myriad forms the business must file every year. I'm launching an investigation of myself to see what really happened. Please bear with me while this process runs its course. In the interim, please give me money, so I can pay for all the legal and accounting professionals to conduct the investigation."
Sigh. Just when I thought I couldn't get more jaded.
And yet!, you still live there...
I had a business in CA and made a choice. I moved it to another state (VA). I've never been happier.
I can empathize with you though. Those tears on your pillow will dry in the morning.
Its only the ass raping from .gov that never fades from memory.
I still juggle from time to time too.
I spend time in California, and was recently in Rio, Brazil.
BOTH places suffer from boom bubble in Real estate. Both places have gilded youth. Lots of wealth and poverty in both places.
But the Best things about Rio, are the beautiful beaches, clean ocean air, (No chemtrails) and non-radioactive water. All things that LA sadly lacks.
Okay, and the babes in tiny teeny bikinis. California lacks those too.
And, of course you're going to share all the snapshots of the babes in teeny tiny bikinis.
She runs away from any one who looks like they are about to blow their top.
"But the Best things about Rio, are the beautiful beaches, clean ocean air, (No chemtrails) and non-radioactive water"
Sorry to inform you but, Brazil has some of the most radioactive beaches:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarapari
Guarapari has an extremely high level of background radiation, some 175 mSv per year (20?Sv/h).[4][5] Along a roughly 500-mile portion of Brazil's Atlantic coast that runs from north of Rio de Janeiro up to the region south of Bahia, the sands of old beaches are naturally radioactive. Sea waves pound coastal mountains rich in monazite, a phosphate of rare earth metals containing uranium and thorium
But GW said otherwise!
Rio is incredibly beautiful and I agree about the beaches, women and the jungle areas. Had to spend 2 months there three years ago and was sick about returning here. However, you do have to be careful near certain neighborhoods since the poor there are really really poor and [understandibly] distraught. They make the "poor" people in merika look pretty well-off.
I did not know that abnout the radioactivity. it's no wonder their babes light up at night!
That’s more than the gross domestic product of Iceland and Jamaica combined.
Bjork and Buddah.
Budda?
Rasta! Get it right mon
Who the fuck cares? The Communists in Sacramento will only squander the new found money. More money to State universities, state unions/pensions, cronism, high speed trains, and welfare. The money is better used unspent. $32 billion would make a great "rainy day" fund said no politician ever.
Anybody here from California who can give us an update on your High Speed Rail?
Our high speed rail project is currently in the care of the Dreamers. The Uh-Oh Squad will be along soon to have their turn.
It's easy to run a surplus when you don't count any of your expenses.
I've always been amazed at how Commiefornia can run deficits in the billions every years and not own a printing press. I mean.......who buys thier bonds. Really.
Love how they are blaming budget cuts. How in the hell does a budget cut allow you to get away with not doing your damn job? Oh right, it's a government position.
And meanwhile all us poor inbred, redneck Texans are pointing and laughing.
Yet another triumph of Government. Why not abolish the private sector entirely? I look forward to a government planned Golden Age. /sarc
Why don't the rich buy homes in Florida and claim to be Florida residents for tax purposes? They can still live in California, but they won't get tax fucked.
Most of Hollywood has done that for years. But its not as simple as just claiming it. YOu have to actually count the days you live in California making certain not to live there too long in any one year. For as incompetent as the state is in most everything else, they will look at your paper trail for where you spend your time. See Oprah Winfrey for details.
This is a classic election year political hatchet job on John Chiang since he's running for Controller again. It’s all BS sponsored by the usual collection of plutocrats. As I recall, Chiang suspended salaries for legislators because they wouldn’t pass a budget. He’s been a good Controller and managed to keep California state government afloat when things looked very dire.
ZH goofballs get over it. Commie California has a budget surplus unlike, for example, a state run by a “conservative” Fact Cat (literally) such as Christie of New Joisey…
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/nyregion/for-christie-a-narrative-loses-currency.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140521&nlid=66834637&tntemail0=y&_r=0
I’m sure that Christie will “weigh in” on Joisey’s problems shortly.
Oh, and by the way, should California ever go down… the rest of the country (that includes YOU) will go with it. Your schadenfreude will get you nowhere and it reveals your real agenda.
Oh, and by the way, should California ever go down… the rest of the country (that includes YOU) will go with it. Your schadenfreude will get you nowhere and it reveals your real agenda.
What.....the flying FUCK is this nonsense???
Clownifornia could sink into the Pacific, and the rest of us will be just fine....
PROVE that asinine statement....because that is what it is; ASININE.
BeetleBailey,
Let me educate you. Google is a wonderful source of information for the intellectually challenged. For example...
"California has an enormously productive economy, which for a nation would be one of the ten largest in the world."
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/us/california-economy.html#ixzz33...
Even the above doesn't tell the whole story since California-based companies dominate many industrial sectors... computer hardware, software, defense, agriculture, materials science, entertainment, biomedical engineering, biopharmaceuticals, etc. The list goes on but I'm sure you have no idea of this so articulating all of them serves no purpose.
California doesn’t fit your incorrect model of reality so it must be evil.
Incidentally, ZH’s Armageddon/Apocalypse/collapse/end-of-the-world prognostications seem to be wearing thin. Why hasn’t collapse occurred? Where’s the hyperinflation? The dollar decline? What’s wrong? Surely it’s just around the corner.
Could it be that all that lead and gold buried in your back yard was not a great investment? I guess that buying the VIX and shorting Tesla didn’t work out as planned. What would Rickards do? Faber? They must have the answers.
Johnny....know all about the "data" from Clownifornia....
Here's where you go off on the Fuckbamavik rail;
"Incidentally, ZH’s Armageddon/Apocalypse/collapse/end-of-the-world prognostications seem to be wearing thin. Why hasn’t collapse occurred? Where’s the hyperinflation? The dollar decline? What’s wrong? Surely it’s just around the corner."
TRY......oh..... 4 TRILLION OF THOUGHT UP MONEY....
GET A CLUE.
HYPER -INFLATION?
HOW ABOUT GOOD OLD FASHIONED IN YOUR FUCKING FACE INFLATION.
YOU MUST SHOP WITH BERNANKE....
THE DOLLAR WILL DECLINE....THINKING UP 4 TRILLION.....PLEASE....
CLOWNIFORNIA HAS BEEN RUN INTO THE GROUND. PERIOD.
Nice state. SHITTY POLITICIANS AND IDIOTS THAT VOTE THEM IN AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Quick take bids to investigate it!
You picked New Jersey, which is being destroyed by union pensions, and you're claiming this was the fault of conservatives? Yikes. Would you like to buy my bridge?
Yea, that’s it. Those teachers, cops, fireman, etc. and their pensions… THEY are the problem in Joisey. How dare they expect retirement security. We in the private sector gladly accept our lot as the new peons of the 21st century. Why should they be any different? The world will be an infinitely better place without those union thugs making ridiculous demands on management.
Re: the openly-criminal Police Union which negotiates its members a license to kill and brutalize with complete immunity, a civilian "review" board staffed by friends, relatives and "themselves", and overstuffed pensions with full retirement at fifty.......yes it would be a better world without those cops with that Union.
Like I said the other day: "It's not lying if it's bullshit."
When you have a single party running the state, mistakes just don't matter just like public graft doesn't matter, selling away taxpayers for the sake of huge campaign donors doesn't matter, very expensive yet poorly performing schools doesn't matter, chasing business out of the state doesn't matter, and wasteful government spending doesn't matter.
The audit revealed:
$7.7 billion – In understated revenues and in understated expenditures. Maybe this is a wash and not a negative.
$8 billion – Overstated debt! That's not a "cost"
$9.1 billion – In an understated fund! That's not a "cost", either.
Ok, the deferred tax-revenue of $6.2 billion is a negative, but who knows how far in the future it's deferred so these mistakes mean California has at least $9.1 billion more than it thought!
re-read and ask an accountant
was anything overstated?
Or were all the problems negative????
The government corruption in Bell, California is the rule, not the exception. Only the Bell thieves got caught, highly unusual.
.......applying government standards, I'm trying to figure out what Bell Mayor Rizzo did wrong.
Clownifornia has been run by FUCKING IDIOTS FOR DECADES.
Too bad...nice state....
LOUSY WITH ILLEGALS, GANGS, HOLLYWHACK FRUIT LOOPS AND STUPID FUCKING LIBERAL ASS WIPES..
No surprise that they can't do fucking anything right...
One big bucket of tar and 500 lbs of feathers applied to less than 2 dozen politicians and you'd be surprised how accurate those numbers would be next year.
Its not a mistake when something is done on purpose. Maybe try these words, LYING, MISLEADING, FRAUD Ect. ect. ect.
That's gov't accounting, even Fannie Mae turned a "profit".
"What difference does it make now?" "When I become POTUS I'll make sure your state accountss are balanced with Fed Funds. No worries!" "Just vote for me in 2016." Signed Hillary
Rounding error.