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For decades, California lawmakers requested authorities audits, Californians person paid for those audits, and the State Auditor provided elaborate recommendations connected however to hole waste, fraud, and oversight failures crossed authorities government.
In astir cases, CBS News California found lawmakers did not enactment connected those recommendations.
When they did act, erstwhile bulk enactment leaders softly killed dozens of audit-backed bills successful committee. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed astatine slightest a twelve more.
A CBS News California probe recovered lawmakers failed to enact astir 3 retired of each 4 authorities audit recommendations directed astatine the Legislature, leaving much than 300 outstanding statutory fixes unresolved.
Now, lawmakers from some parties — and some authorities houses — accidental it's clip to code the backlog.
CLICK TO EXPLORE: California Lawmaker Audit Accountability Tracker
The caller Legislative Audit Chair, Democrat Assemblymember John Harabedian, called the findings a "wake-up call" and said the Legislature has an accidental to tackle long-standing issues with a caller people of members this league and a caller authorities enactment adjacent year.
"I deliberation that determination is simply a large accidental with a caller people successful the Legislature, a caller governor, to truly tackle these things head-on," Harabedian said.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones agreed the numbers are concerning.
"Three retired of 4 is ridiculous that that's not being addressed," Jones said.
Both lawmakers emphasized that the audit process itself is nonpartisan.
"It's nonpartisan. It's not adjacent bipartisan — it's nonpartisan," Jones said. "When the auditor takes that contented up, they travel astatine this with nary bias."
Agencies comply. Lawmakers don't.
Under the Omnibus Audit Accountability Act of 2006, the State Auditor indispensable contented yearly reports identifying bureau recommendations not implemented after 1 year. Agencies are required to publically explicate wherefore they person not acted oregon erstwhile they mean to comply.
Agencies instrumentality astir 3 retired of each 4 recommendations. By comparison, lawmakers neglect to enact 3 retired of each 4 recommendations directed to them.
For lawmakers, determination is:
- No required yearly summary of unfinished legislative recommendations
- No ceremonial mentation request erstwhile lawmakers neglect to act
- No centralized tracking erstwhile bills dice oregon are vetoed
Why fixes stalled
A deeper dive into legislative records revealed aggregate reasons projected audit-backed reforms failed.
More than 60 bills were drafted oregon introduced based connected audit findings, but aboriginal died. Some stalled owed to interior governmental disagreements. Others faced absorption from authorities agencies.
Some were softly held successful committee oregon connected the suspense record without a nationalist vote, often an denotation that Democratic supermajority enactment did not enactment the bill.
At slightest different twelve audit-related bills passed the legislature lone to beryllium vetoed by Gov. Newsom.
In respective veto messages, the politician argued that further oversight was unnecessary oregon that the projected changes were excessively costly.
A displacement successful "tone"
For years, erstwhile State Auditor Elaine Howle voluntarily issued yearly reports summarizing outstanding recommendations directed specifically to the legislature.
Those reports:
- Listed each unresolved legislative recommendation
- Identified which argumentation committee was responsible
- Documented whether related bills were introduced, stalled, passed, oregon vetoed
They functioned arsenic a centralized accountability framework, fundamentally a legislative checklist of unfinished business.
That reporting ended successful 2022 aft Howle retired and Gov. Newsom appointed a caller authorities auditor, Grant Parks.
CBS News California identified astatine slightest a dozen audit-recommended bills that Governor Newsom vetoed during his archetypal term, portion Howle was auditor. Based connected publically disposable records, it does not look helium has vetoed immoderate audit-related bills since appointing Parks.
At his archetypal Joint Legislative Audit Committee hearing, wherever the lawmakers determine which audit requests to approve, Parks signaled a displacement successful tone.
Before introducing Parks, the recently appointed JLAC Chair David Alvarez acknowledged that, successful the past, audits had sometimes created "an adversarial narration betwixt the Legislature and the Administration."
In response, Parks emphasized the value of maintaining a "balanced tone" and "working with the Administration," adding, "We're not looking retired to get radical oregon summation media attention," Parks clarified.
A alteration successful reporting
The auditor's bureau told CBS News California the determination to discontinue producing the peculiar legislative reports detailing outstanding recommendations and audit-related vetoes was made to "optimize the usage of auditor resources."
In a statement, spokesperson Dana Simas said redirecting efforts toward halfway audit enactment would amended timeliness for statutory and legislatively approved audits. She added that recommendations stay publically accessible connected the auditor's website, "which we upgraded successful January 2024 to connection a importantly improved idiosyncratic acquisition that present offers elaborate hunt capabilities of recommendations by contented oregon argumentation area, agency, and the twelvemonth the audit was published."
However, the updated tract does not supply a dedicated hunt for "Recommendations to the Legislature."
Using nationalist information arsenic an example, the site's existent hunt function returns conscionable 4 nationalist information audit reports, with lone 2 disposable legislative recommendations, overlooking dozens of further outstanding legislative recommendations successful different nationalist information audits issued implicit the past 5 years.
To place those recommendations, users indispensable manually search the archive, reviewing hundreds of idiosyncratic audit reports to place the dozens of outstanding legislative recommendations issued since 2021 alone.
In practice, lawmakers relying solely connected the existent hunt tools would not spot the afloat scope of unfinished legislative recommendations.
Lawmakers accidental that spread matters.
The legislature trusts the auditor's findings truthful overmuch that they passed a law requiring authorities agencies to either instrumentality audit recommendations oregon publically explicate wherefore they person not.
That nationalist accountability has proven effective. Agencies instrumentality much than 80% of audit recommendations. No comparable model exists for the legislature.
So CBS News California built one.
Using nationalist records, we scraped and consolidated legislative recommendations crossed audit reports to make the Audit Accountability Tracker — a database focused specifically connected recommendations directed astatine elected lawmakers.
Rebuilding the accountability framework
The CBS News California | Legislative Audit Accountability Tracker is intended to service some lawmakers and the public.
CLICK TO EXPLORE: California Lawmaker Audit Accountability Tracker
The database compiles a decennary of legislative audit recommendations and tracks:
- Which bills were introduced
- Which stalled
- Which passed
- Which were vetoed
- Which stay unresolved
Nearly fractional of the California Legislature is caller this session. Many outstanding recommendations were issued earlier existent members took office.
"When these reports travel backmost to the legislature, it's our occupation to instrumentality that accusation and legislate intelligently," said Jones, who acknowledged they request to amended caller lawmakers connected the value of authorities audits.
Harabedian says helium intends to enactment crossed committees and crossed enactment lines to code the backlog.
"I'm hoping by the extremity of this twelvemonth we tackle immoderate of it, by the adjacent twelvemonth we tackle more, and we conscionable support going," helium said. "We beryllium it to the radical to bash that."
For years, the warnings were written and the solutions were identified. Now, lawmakers accidental they're acceptable to determination forward.
CBS News California volition proceed tracking whether those promises go law.
John Kelly contributed to this report.
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