Subtraction California Style

Sacramento, Ca.~California employs people to expose waste and fraud but, unfortunately, agencies such as the California Department of Education (CDE) sometimes prefer to fire and demote these workers rather than heed their warnings. (See "The Corruption Inherent in the System," December 11, 2002.)  State funds are now flowing to attorneys defending the CDE against its own employees. PRI will address this disturbing case again during 2007.

Meanwhile, PRI’s forthcoming California Education Report Card quotes Paul Meyers, a CDE official, who says of one categorical program: "We don’t know how the money is being used. We wish we did." 

So do the California taxpayers who provided the money. Consider also Carolyn Macchiavellie, a CDE official who oversees English Language Acquisition in California. Asked by a reporter where the money goes for that program, Macchiavellie said: "I have no idea. There’s no audit. There’s nothing."

That kind of glib agnosticism with public funds probably merits a visit from law enforcement. But maybe the newly minted Schwarzenegger administration could relieve Duane Hoffman from tracking Shaquille O’Neal and assign the intrepid sleuth to these cases.

K. Lloyd Billingsly is the Editorial Director for the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute. This brief is excerpted from his column for PRI’s Capital Ideas.