Hercules is the target of an audit by the State Controller, becoming the third California city to garner that dubious distinction since the Bell financial scandal broke last year.
The state office audited Bell, a Los Angeles suburb, last year. An audit of nearby Montebello, announced in April, is ongoing. Hercules' latest financial reports raise significant concerns, Controller John Chiang said in a letter to Hercules interim City Manager Liz Warmerdam last week announcing his decision to investigate.
Montebello is the city where former Hercules City Manager Nelson Oliva worked before he became a consultant to Hercules in 2003. He was appointed Hercules city manager in April 2007 and stepped down in January 2011.
Oliva is widely blamed for Hercules' current financial crisis, although he has said that elected and administrative city officials during his tenure were privy to everything he did.
Oliva's stint in Montebello did not factor in the Controller's selection of Hercules as his next audit, said agency spokesman Garin Casaleggio.
"Since the city of Bell, the controller has received more than 100 requests to audit local agencies," Casaleggio said. The requests came from the general public, community groups and public officials, he said. With limited resources, the office could take on only one more city, Hercules, at this time, he said.
Hercules, with a population just shy of 25,000, faced a $6 million deficit in its general fund at the beginning of the current fiscal year that it pared down to about $800,000 while laying off more than 30 percent of its workforce, and a $1.9 million gap in the redevelopment agency budget that it hopes to make up this year with the sale of surplus property and by drawing on a special reserve that will be down to less than $1 million by the end of the fiscal year.
没有评论:
发表评论