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Santa Monica city officials last week approved a multimillion-dollar apartment unit for the homeless just days after the release of an audit which found California could not account for the $24 billion it spent on the state’s burgeoning homeless crisis. The 122-unit building for the homeless will include a mix of studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments, along with ground floor retail and residential and commercial parking spaces. A design concept available on the city's website shows that the multi-apartment unit will cost more than $123 million, for a cost of just over $1 million each for the 122 apartments....

City urged to work harder to assess cost, impactOver the past three years, San Jose has failed to consistently track the more than $300 million spent to fight homelessness and cannot adequately ensure that the money is helping to alleviate the crisis, according to a much-anticipated state audit. The financial audit, released this week by the California State Auditor, also found that San Jose lacks clear goals for its homelessness programs and has no cohesive plan for building the affordable housing needed for its estimated 6,340 homeless residents. “The biggest conclusion that the auditors came back with is that there’s...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration lost track of the $24 billion in taxpayer funds it spent over the past five years in an attempt to curb the state’s homelessness crisis, an audit has found. The California State Auditor’s report, released on April 9, detailed multiple “gaps” in accountability in regards to how the money was allocated during the 2018-2023 fiscal years. Lead auditor Grant Parks said the state “has not collected sufficient data” to prove that the billions of dollars improved the situation.

"Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything," goes the old axiom. That's why I never trust a Democrat who makes any promise ever about a federal agency or program. Take Medicare. In 1966 when Medicare began, it cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost about $12 billion by 1990. Instead, it cost $107 billion and today costs the government close to a trillion dollars.So when Joe Biden and the Democrats assured Americans and Republicans in Congress that the $80 billion the president wanted...

Clark County violated Nevada and federal law by prematurely deleting communication records related to its voter registration lists, an audit published on Thursday claims. In a litigation notice sent to Clark County Registrar Lorena Portillo on Tuesday, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) asserted that Nevada’s most populous county violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and several state laws by deleting most of its election-related communications after six months. The NVRA requires states to “maintain for at least 2 years” and “make available for public inspection … all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for...

Politicians and law enforcement figures in Houston are dealing with the massive blowback after an audit revealed that for at least eight years, authorities had “suspended” and not investigated more than 260,000 criminal cases. Officials say a lack of manpower led to the suspension of about 10 percent of the crimes reported. The revelations led to various groups calling for the firing of Houston Police Chief Troy Finner. The issue first began earlier this month when information from an internal audit revealed that thousands of sexual assault cases had been suspended from investigations and simply filed as not enough manpower....

As Americans file returns this season, some worry about IRS audits amid agency efforts to ramp up service, technology and enforcement. Recent IRS enforcement has targeted high-income individuals, large corporations and complex partnerships. But everyday filers could still face an audit — and certain issues are more prone to IRS scrutiny, experts say. You don’t want to face the “audit lottery,” warned Ryan Losi, a certified public accountant and executive vice president of CPA firm Piascik. Audit rates of individual income tax returns decreased for all income levels from tax years 2010 to 2019, largely due to lower IRS funding,...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to suitably report billions of dollars in fiscal 2022 spending, the agency’s inspector general determined, prompting condemnation from GOP lawmakers. A report released last week by the independent watchdog said the agency’s initial reporting to USAspending.gov — the federal government’s “official public source” of spending information — was “not complete or accurate” because the EPA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) “did not follow its information technology configuration management procedures.” “Consequently, necessary changes to the OCFO’s DATA Act Evaluation and Approval Repository, the system that facilitates the Agency’s USAspending.gov reporting, were either unimplemented...

Paul Harris got up before the Arizona Senate and testified that he was responsible for auditing the UOCAVA ballots. (Uniform Overseas Civilian Absentee Act) He said these ballots went from 1,600 ballots in 2016, to around 9,600 in 2020, and 95% of them were for Joe Biden!

The Pentagon has just failed its sixth audit in as many years.In early October, it was reported that the Pentagon was crying broke to Congress, now this.Considering that the world is on fire under Biden, now would be a good time to have our Defense Department in order, but no such luck.The Department of Defense (DOD) failed its sixth straight audit with little positive change from the year prior, despite pledges from Pentagon leaders to make improvements on the massive undertaking each year.Auditors gave seven of the department’s 29 sub-agencies a clean audit in 2023, with no change from the...

Two years ago Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin decreed that all military personnel must get one of the experimental Covid vaccines or be discharged from the armed forces. Lawmakers were assured that "the discharge of disobedient service members will have no operational impacts across the force for readiness." Now, the Army has sent letters to those they kicked out informing them that since the pandemic has been canceled they may apply to come back. These letters made no apology for kicking these men and women out, but did offer those who received a less than honorable discharge an opportunity to...

Here on the right side of the American political spectrum, we're used to railing against "the government." I've done plenty of it in speeches and in writing over the years. Most of the time, I will refer to "the bureaucracy" when I am making a point about how awful the government is. Bureaucracy is, after all, what clogs the arteries of the federal government. What frustrates those of us who have to function in the real world about the federal bureaucracy is the utter lack of accountability. While the rest of us have to do our jobs well if we...

For the sixth year in a row, the Department of Defense (DOD) has failed a self-audit of 29 standalone entities controlling $3.8 trillion in assets and responsible for $4 trillion in liabilities. Seven of the 29 audited entities achieved a passing score. The Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care Fund received a "qualified opinion" indicting auditor found "misstatements" (if you do this when talking to an FBI agent you go to prison) that allegedly did not change the bottom line. Three audits are still in progress. The remaining 18 failed, including money sumps like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and National...

Federal law since the early 1990s requires mandatory audits for all government agencies. The Pentagon didn’t begin auditing itself until 2018 and has only had incremental improvement yearly. This time around, 1,600 auditors combed through DOD’s $3.8 trillion in assets and $4 trillion in liabilities, conducting some 700 site visits. They found that half of DOD’s assets can’t be accounted for.

"If you care about debt and deficits, you should want a well-funded, well-functioning IRS."Biden IRS Launches Audit Into Conservative Org That Helped Tank Nominees For Key Administrative Posts Meet the new IRS. Same as the old IRS. But with a lot more money to be put to the use of pursuing political enemies. In the latest series of Front Page Magazine’s investigative pieces on the IRS complicity in enabling leftist violence and terrorism, I profiled a nonprofit that is integrated with Hamas. The BDS National Committee referred to the Hamas atrocities as the “resistance of the oppressed” and the “powerful...

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel faced a grilling by lawmakers on Capitol Hill this past week, where he hinted that there's a chance that the agency will—contrary to its repeated pledges—increase tax audits of Americans earning under $400,000.The question of whether the IRS will use some of the $80 billion or so funding boost to increase tax enforcement of people making less than $400,000 has been a contentious issue.IRS and Treasury Department officials have pledged not to increase audit rates for this group of Americans, while Republicans and others have argued that this pledge is either false or wishful thinking.Treasury Secretary...

Wisconsin Public Radio reports, “The majority decision was written by Justice Rebecca Bradley and joined by the rest of the court’s conservative majority, including swing Justice Brian Hagedorn.” “Nothing in the statutory language detailing the procedures by which absentee ballots may be cast mentions drop boxes or anything like them,” Bradley wrote in the ruling. “WEC’s staff may have been trying to make voting as easy as possible during the pandemic, but whatever their motivations, WEC must follow Wisconsin statutes,” Bradley continued. “Good intentions never override the law.” Additionally, voters must personally deliver absentee ballots to the clerk’s office. Others,...

The FBI had so many paid informants at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that they lost track of the number and had to perform a later audit to determine exactly how many “Confidential Human Sources” run by different FBI field offices were present that day, a former assistant director of the bureau has told lawmakers. At least one informant was communicating with his FBI handler as he entered the Capitol, according to Steven D’Antuono, formerly in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office. D’Antuono has testified behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee that his office was aware...

Who are they protecting here? What are they hiding? That's about all one can ask now that Democrats have quashed two measures to set up an independent Ukraine aid auditing office under one audit umbrella. According to Fox News, the plan was this: Amid the Democratic-controlled Senate’s ongoing National Defense Spending Authorization Act (NDAA) talks, GOP Sens. Josh Hawley, James Risch, Roger Wicker and John Kennedy drafted an amendment to create an exclusive Ukraine spending oversight office, led by the president’s choice. ...and according to the New York Post, it got this: Senate Democrats banded together Wednesday night to oppose...

A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Information Warfare (JIW) confirms a “Loss of Control” breach has occurred in the NYSVoter Database. A peer-reviewed paper of their results in a respected journal is a hard-won and “significant milestone,” according to Marly Hornik, Executive Director of the NY Citizens Audit. The audit of the voter rolls was led by Marly Hornik and Andrew Paquette, Ph.D., Director of Research, who submitted the paper to JIW. Paquette “co-founded the International Game Architecture and Design Academy (now BUAS) in the Netherlands after a career in the feature film and video game industries. He received...