A companion article:

Ex-Marine general takes helm of state parks agency

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/01/local/la-me-parks-director-20130102

SACRAMENTO — Anthony Jackson can relate to the many Californians who are furious with the state Parks Department.

The retired Marine and his wife were among the outdoor enthusiasts who dug into their pockets this year to save a beloved local park after Gov. Jerry Brown´s administration announced there was no money to keep dozens of them open. Then it turned out that parks officials had concealed tens of millions of dollars — enough to keep almost everything operating — from state bookkeepers.

Now it´s Jackson´s job to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

They thought their scheme was unravelable. As this unfolds there might be more of this in other agencies. Check out the CHP to begin with....

Death penalty is appropriate for instigators. Just my opinion, of course.

FTA: Accounting discrepancies appeared to begin innocently more than a decade ago, leading to fluctuating reports on how much money was in the fund, investigators said.

How do accounting discrepancies begin innocently? Is that some kind of excuse for incompetence?

Maybe they can find enough to pay the "public servants" pensions and Free, Lifetime health care.

Don´t you just love our gov´t and "public servants"? They are so honest, work so hard and are good stewards our citizens tax dollars. Folks they are so stapped, they need more money to offer the same amount of wonderful services to our community.

Could be a strategy of self-survival. I was employed with a state department for over three decades. Every year, we were given an allotted budget for everything from salaries to computers down to pencils. We were urged yearly to "stay in the green" and spend under the allotted amount in spite of cost of supplies increasing. Each year that we came under budget, the following year, the department received several thousand dollare under the amount spent the year previous. So, as a result of trying to stay under budget and using pencils down to the nub, our department was budgeted with less and less every year. It worked until an expensive copy machine broke and it´s replacement left us without funds for computer paper the last month of the fiscal year. We finally would evaluate our budget close to the end of the fiscal year and purchased enough office equipment or supplies to push our expenditures to just under the red. It was a matter of hedging just to satisfy the bean counters in order to keep our department operating.

And yet the idiot voters in California fell for Jerry Browns line of B.S. when they recently passed proposition 30. Moombeam pontificated that it was necessary to raise taxes to save the schools (teachers union). How much more hidden money is out there? Remember this is the state that needs a high speed rail system that will run from SF to LA and cost billions of dollars. California use to be a wonderful state to live in. What happened? One word. Democrats!