Friday, July 13, 2012

California City Under Investigation Drained Reserve Funds - Bloomberg

California City Under Investigation Drained Reserve Funds - Bloomberg

Law enforcement officials are investigating possible crimes in San Bernardino’s city government, which almost drained special funds to prop up its budget.
The near-bankrupt state of the community of 209,000 east of Los Angeles came to light when a new finance director discovered that previous officials shifted money for workers-compensation and liability insurance to the general fund, said Andrea Travis- Miller, interim city manager.
“The city has relied on a whole variety of one-time measures to balance its budget,” Travis-Miller, who began her job in May, said yesterday. “There have been transfers to the general fund with the expectation that they would be repaid. That became difficult.”
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San Bernardino's fiscal crisis is looking more and more like a case of mismanagement occurring in hard economic times in which they lost property tax revenues and also face a huge pension obligation. Thanks to Fred Pilot for the link.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey that's no different that every self-respecting corporation out there. Look at any financial report giving glowing reviews with a footnote that says "excluding one-time items". Then you have one of these "one-time items" every quarter right into paper prosperity!