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2025-02-26 Government Corruption
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Newsom asks Congress for $40 billion in fire aid, masking weak CA finances, primes NGO windfall
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[JustTheNews] After an official state audit found $24 billion in state homelessness spending was not sufficiently tracked or evaluated, Newsom launched a statewide “accountability” website on homelessness.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $40 billion fire aid request to Congress masks pre-fire budget woes and primes billions for nongovernmental organizations — largely government-funded groups providing government-type services.
Going into the new year, California’s largest cities, including Los Angeles, were already in weak fiscal shape.
Los Angeles City Controller Kevin Mejia said the city is “broke” and may soon be required to declare a fiscal emergency to make withdrawals from protected reserves after spending half of its reserves in the past year.
“Just one year ago, the reserve fund was historically strong, at $648 million,” said Mejia. “Less than three months into this fiscal year, the city is again dipping into its reserves to pay for liability claims (already $170M over budget). It’s getting close to going below the 2.75% mark, which when that happens, City Council must make a finding of a fiscal emergency.”
Newsom’s proposed fiscal year 2025-2026 budget, drafted before the fire, would withdraw $7 billion from reserves but lead to what the Legislative Analyst’s Office said would be “annual operating deficits beginning in 2026‑27 — growing from about $20 billion to about $30 billion.”
The state and local governments’ poor record of accountability suggests the funds may not be allocated well or fairly.
After an official state audit found $24 billion in state homelessness spending was not sufficiently tracked or evaluated, Newsom launched a statewide “accountability” website on homelessness, which provides little information beyond the total number of local homeless counted once per year and vague behavioral health statistics. Notably, this dashboard does not include homelessness spending and the number of people who have exited homelessness, which makes it difficult to use the dashboard to assess homelessness spending outcomes.
At the more local level, the chief executive of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which oversees nearly a billion dollars per year combined city and county homelessness spending, was recently found by LAIst to have “inadvertently” signed millions of dollars of contracts to the nonprofit her husband works at, violating the organization’s conflict-of-interest policy.
LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum earns $430,000 per year, or more than Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Bass initially hired Adams Kellum as a consultant for a no-bid contract on homelessness advising for $60,000 for work she did between Feb. 6 and May 23 2023, or about $1,300 per day (including weekends).
Notably, Newsom’s executive order on disaster relief created a 60-day reporting extension for required ethics disclosures of behested payments or conflicts of interest for government officials in Los Angeles County, which — as billions of dollars comes flooding in — could lead to similar situations and possible impropriety.
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Posted by Skidmark 2025-02-26 03:41||
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File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life,
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Posted by Abu Uluque 2025-02-26 13:30||
2025-02-26 13:30||
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Posted by DarthVader 2025-02-26 15:16||
2025-02-26 15:16||
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