Latest Headlines on OCRegister.com
[x] Close
OC Watchdog ~ Your tax dollars at work.

Archive for the 'Federal spending' Category

« Previous Entries

Don’t use the toll roads? You pay for them anyway

November 18th, 2009, 6:00 am by Jennifer Muir

roadCan’t afford to drive on the toll roads? Then chances are it’ll be decades before you’ll see some $7.3 million in federal stimulus cash at work.

That’s how much the feds are spending on asphalt improvements on the 73 — along a 12.3-mile section of the road where you can’t take your car unless you pony up lots of pocket change.

So the Watchdog called Jennifer Seaton, a spokeswoman for the Toll Road Agencies, to ask the next obvious question: If my tax dollars are paying for new asphalt on the road, then why do I have to pay again to drive on it?

(TCA is the government agency that operates the 73, 241, 261 and 133 toll roads in Orange County.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal spending • Money • State government • Traffic • Transportation | 53 Comments »

Deep flaws haunt state’s system for attacking elder abuse, report says

November 6th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

elder-abuseThere are deep flaws in California’s approach to detecting and responding to elder abuse and neglect - flaws that prevent serious cases from ever coming to light, according to a new report form the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes.

California has more than 9,000 nursing and residential care facilities for the elderly, and 290,000 licensed beds, according to federal statistics. Riding herd on them are about 1,000 “long-term care ombudsmen” - people originally meant to be watchdog/mediators, doing spot checks of facilities, following up on complaints, and helping make life better for residents by serving as intermediates, and advocates, with management.

But something else has happened entirely, according to the report.

Because of laws California has adopted, these watchdog/mediators have morphed into the front line for investigating serious reports of elder abuse and neglect. That gives rise to several problems - the least of which may be that there’s no time for the routine spot checks and patient advocacy that was originally envisioned.

Ombudsmen - now legally tasked with very serious investigations of suspected abuse and neglect - can only tell law enforcement about problems if the complaining parties agree to release their names and complaints.

Only one-quarter agree to this. Which means 75 percent of complaints essentially disappear.

What precisely are we talking about here? Assault, sexual  harassment, financial exploitation, physical neglect…. grim stuff.

Why won’t people sign their names to complaints? Well, if you had to keep living in the place you were complaining about - or have your most basic and intimate needs attended to by someone you were complaining about - you might be a bit frightened of attaching your name to the complaint, too. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal spending • Public health • Public safety • State government | 18 Comments »

Prominent Yorba Linda businessman subject of Air Force investigation

October 27th, 2009, 5:37 am by Jessica Terrell

He was an Orange County triumph, an African-American businessman who turned a small local company into a national success.

Jackson poses for photographers in 2001, shortly before he was honored for his entrepreneurial success by the SBA.

Jackson poses for photographers in 2001, shortly before he was honored for his entrepreneurial success by the SBA.

Craig Jackson’s company, Sanders Engineering, grew so quickly that it graduated from the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Program early. But it was his mentorship of other minority business owners that really made Jackson stand out to community leaders.

Jackson created a division of his company that provided management services to select companies, and allowed them to work on joint projects with the engineering company.

“It’s like a marriage; we want the relationship to be seamless so clients can’t tell where (the protege) ends and we begin,” Jackson told the Register in 2001.

If allegations by the Air Force are true, then Jackson’s relationship with other minority-owned companies was so seamless it was actually an elaborate scheme that disguised ownership and management stakes, funneling millions of dollars into the pockets of Jackson and his family members.

Jackson is currently the subject of an ongoing Air Force investigation into possible abuses of the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Program, which allows minority-owned businesses to qualify for sole-source government contracts.

Companies associated with Jackson may have falsely qualified for up to $700 million in contracts, Air Force documents allege.

Multiple attempts by The Watchdog to contact Jackson and his lawyer, Tony Franco, were unsuccessful. However, Franco told ProPublica that, Jackson is “someone who has helped small businesses, and we believe the facts will bear out that he continues doing so.”

The Air Force suspended 19 companies affiliated with Jackson from qualifying for government contracts on Sept. 23. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Armed services • Federal government • Federal spending | 26 Comments »

Will SR-91 stimulus project create 493 jobs — or 60?

October 13th, 2009, 5:00 am by Jessica Terrell

For months, Orange County Transportation Authority officials have boasted that projects funded by federal stimulus money could create as many as 3,781 local jobs.

But a close examination of employment estimates shows that formulas for estimating job creation vary wildly and actual payroll numbers are likely to be much, much lower.

Orange County’s largest stimulus project, an extension of the SR-91, was projected by OCTA to create as many as 1,332 jobs. According to the transportation agency’s formula, 493 of those jobs should have been direct full time construction work lasting a year.

But the company that won the contract estimates the project will take 100,000 manhours – the equivalent of less than 60 full time jobs lasting the length of the 10-month project.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal spending • Financial meltdown • Public works • Transportation | 9 Comments »

The hamburger patty that almost killed Stephanie Smith

October 5th, 2009, 1:38 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

burgerIf you enjoy a big juicy hamburger every now and again, you might want to read the New York Times’ stomach-churning story about the beef patty that nearly killed Stephanie Smith.

Smith, 22, ate a burger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner. She wound up with a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which shut down her kidneys, sent her into seizures, and prompted doctors to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When Smith awoke, she was paralyzed from the waist down.

The Times does a terrifying job tracing where the meat that wound up in Smith’s burger came from - and the gaping holes in the federal food safety system.

“Ms. Smith’s reaction to the virulent strain of E. coli was extreme, but tracing the story of her burger, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble,” the story says. “Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe.”

Gulp.

More Watchdog:

Posted in: Consumer stuff • Federal government • Federal spending • Public health • Public safety • watchdog roundup | 14 Comments »

Anti-ACORN legislation may splash back onto Boeing, other federal contractors, group says

September 30th, 2009, 4:08 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

acornLast week, mostly by accident, Congress took a step toward “protecting taxpayers from misbehaving contractors,” says a government watchdog group.

The House passed the “Student Aid” bill (H.R. 3221), which included a ban on federal funding to anyone who “has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.”

Although intended to restrict ACORN, the language could be interpreted to apply to all federal contractors and grantees, said the Project On Government Oversight.

POGO’s Federal Contractor Misconduct Database has compiled more than 750 instances of misconduct by contractors such as Boeing, GlaxoSmithKline, Northrop Grumman and others since 1995 - for which they’ve paid more than $27 billion in fines or penalties.

These same contractors received more than $260 billion in public dollars in the 2007 fiscal year alone, POGO says.

More than 60 federal contractors have been involved in instances that might prohibit them from receiving future federal funds if the “Defund ACORN Act” becomes law, POGO said. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal government • Federal spending • | 4 Comments »

Uncle Sam pays stingier retirement benefits than the Golden State

September 28th, 2009, 3:01 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

uncle-samThere are those who say not-so-nice things about the federal government and its, er, alleged propensity to waste money. But in our ongoing inquiry into public employee pensions, we’ve learned a rather interesting fact:

Uncle Sam  is stingier than either the State of California or the embattled Metropolitan Water District of Southern California - which offer their employees some of the stingiest public pensions among local governments.

We told you Friday how quite a few local governments in Orange County offer generous retirement formulas to their employees, which amount to 2.7 percent or 2.5 percent of an employee’s salary for each year worked, once the employee hits age 55.

The state, and Met (and a bunch of OC cities and special districts), look stingy by comparison - offering just 2 percent of an employee’s salary for each year worked, once the employee hits age 55.

But even that cheapie retirement formula makes federal retirees jealous - and we know, because we got phone calls from several of them!  Most federal employees get much less (barring folks in Congress, mind you). Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Employee unions • Federal government • Federal spending • State government • • • • • | 32 Comments »

California asks Uncle Sam for $4.6 billion for high-speed trains

September 25th, 2009, 2:33 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

high-speed-railImagine whizzing from Anaheim to San Francisco in just two hours and 57 minutes on a high-speed train, to enjoy dim sum in Chinatown.

For $40 billion or so, it might just come to pass!

On Thursday, the California High-Speed Rail Authority decided to apply for $4.57 billion in Federal High-Speed Rail Stimulus Funding  for 10 projects throughout the state. That includes:

  • $2 billion for the Los Angeles to Anaheim segment,
  • $1.28 billion for the San Francisco to San Jose segment,
  • $819 million for the Fresno to Bakersfield segment, and
  • $466 million for the Merced to Fresno segment.

California would use state bond funds - from the recent passage of Proposition 1A, the High-Speed Rail Act,  to match federal money dollar for dollar. The money would pay for preliminary engineering, project-level environmental work, mitigation, final design and construction.

Each of these segments is supposed to come online by Sept. 30, 2017.

This doesn’t mean we have the money, of course, but we’re in a good position to get our eager little hands on at least some of it. Why? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal government • Federal spending • Public works • State government • Transportation • • • | 31 Comments »

« Previous Entries