Audits

Scalded by a federal report warning of potential cost overruns, the head of the Southern California Rapid Transit District on Thursday ordered independent audits of the Metro Rail project. Earlier this week, auditors for the U.S. Office of the Inspector General met with Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) to share concerns that the initial 4.4-mile segment of the Metro Rail Red Line subway system was behind schedule and could possibly run out of money, Katz said.

Los Angeles firefighters are taking longer to get to medical emergencies following steep budget cuts approved by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, according to a much-anticipated audit of Fire Department response times released Friday by City Controller Wendy Greuel. Greuel found that "real response times" to medical calls have increased on average about 20 seconds - to seven minutes and eight seconds - since a series of department cutbacks were ordered beginning in 2009.

National park concessionaires, accused of earning excessive profits at the government's expense, have blocked release of a government audit to prevent their finances from being made public, a congressional committee said Thursday. The audit, a detailed appraisal of problems outlined in an Interior Department task force report released in April, was conducted by the agency's inspector general and contains specific profit figures for businesses that operate concessions in national parks.

WASHINGTON — It may be the best-kept secret in residential real estate: For a couple of hundred dollars, a potential buyer bidding on an existing house can ask for a formal energy audit along with the standard inspection clause. That audit, in turn, can save the buyer thousands of dollars in future operating costs and pinpoint the specific features of the house that need correction to improve efficiency. It might also be a tipoff to a sobering reality: This house is an energy guzzler.

For Bill Leisic, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a sort of Huck Finn country where he can drop a line into his favorite fishing hole and hook his limit of bass. To officials in charge of moving water to Central Valley farmers and millions of people in Southern California, it is the state's most important spigot. Without its fresh water, much of the state would go thirsty.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, apparently seeking to mollify critics as he awaits Senate confirmation on his reappointment, said Tuesday that he welcomed a government audit of the central bank's role in the intensely unpopular bailout of American International Group Inc. In a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, Bernanke offered to "make available to the GAO all records and personnel...

An inspector general's audit has found no wrongdoing in the U.S. Treasury Department's $400-million investment of bailout funds in Los Angeles-based City National Bank, according to people familiar with the report. The audit, which is expected to be made public as soon as today, was launched late last year by Treasury Department Inspector General Eric Thorson amid concerns over how and why banks were chosen to receive bailout money. Its focus was whether Treasury officials properly followed the rules established in October when the controversial $250-billion banking bailout was announced as the largest component of the $700-billion federal Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Apple has responded to a wave of criticism of its labor practices in China by joining an industry-funded labor monitoring organization that will conduct extensive audits of factories run by Apple's Chinese manufacturing partners.  The Fair Labor Assn. audits would including the vast Foxconn facilities in Shenzhen and Chengdu that employ hundreds of thousands of workers, and which have been the locus of a number of worker safety problems in recent years. Last May, a fire at one of the plants killed four and injured nearly 20 workers, and in 2010, 13 Foxconn employees jumped to their deaths from factory rooftops.

An independent audit of the Los Angeles Unified School District should be done annually. To be truly independent, an audit cannot be done by an interested party. This would exclude the Los Angeles controller's office, because if the mayor takes over the school district, the city would become involved in district financial matters. Instead, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, the city and the school district should have audits performed by public accounting firms with which they do not have contracts, including consulting agreements.

Federal officials Wednesday notified more than 650 businesses around the country, including nearly 50 in Los Angeles, that their records will be audited as part of a widening effort to find companies that hire illegal immigrants. The number of notices issued is the largest ever in a single day and exceeds the total sent out in all of fiscal 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Mayoral campaign politics again spilled into a controversy over lagging Los Angeles Fire Department response times Tuesday as the City Council voted to launch yet another investigation into the agency's faulty data. The department has been under scrutiny since fire officials acknowledged last month that they have been releasing performance reports that made it appear that first responders were arriving at medical emergencies faster than they actually were. Tuesday's decision to hire outside experts was pushed by two mayoral contenders at the same time that a rival candidate, City Controller Wendy Greuel, has pressed her own audit of the department.

A new city report assails officials in charge of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for failing to impose even basic financial controls, allowing the routine squandering of public money and permitting corruption to take root in "a dysfunctional and risk-prone culture. " On the Coliseum Commission's watch, $870,000 was sent to South America for soccer matches that were never held, according to an audit released Thursday by City Controller Wendy Greuel's office. In addition, a Coliseum contractor received millions in payments even though he had no contract, and a stadium staffer was paid for working 25 hours in a single day. Auditors also found that the commissioners gave their former general manager, Patrick Lynch, an annual bonus of $125,000 for several years without requiring him to undergo a performance review.

A $7.6-billion federal program to help homeowners avert foreclosure set too few goals for the 18 participating states and didn't do enough to make sure the nation's biggest banks were on board, according to a government audit. The audit criticized the Treasury Department for rolling out the Hardest Hit Fund with no advance notice in February 2010, then leaving the states to implement it on their own. The report by a special inspector general pointed out that it took seven months before the government met with the states, banks and mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to make sure everyone was participating in the program.

Long Beach has failed to collect $17.6 million in unpaid parking tickets because of an outdated software program and lack of staff, an audit released Thursday shows. "We cannot afford to ignore the problem any longer," said City Auditor Laura Doud, who announced the findings at a Thursday morning news conference with Mayor Bob Foster. "We must act swiftly and make needed investment to update our outdated system to be more efficient in our collection efforts and to use city resources better.

Los Angeles city officials were warned by auditors three years ago about gaps in the way the city tracks millions of gallons of taxpayer-purchased fuel. But according to a new audit released Thursday by City Controller Wendy Greuel, not enough was done to fix the problems. At a news conference where she announced that more than $7 million in gasoline and other fuels has gone unaccounted for in recent years, Greuel took a swipe at Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council members and department heads for being "asleep at the switch" when monitoring fuel usage by city staff.

A sweeping investigation into three Chinese factories that produce Apple Inc. products found "significant issues" with working conditions, including excessive overtime and health and safety risks. An industry-funded labor watchdog group, the Fair Labor Assn., said Thursday that it had conducted a thorough inspection of the factories operated by Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple and other tech companies. The group said it had secured "groundbreaking commitments" that will reduce working hours, improve conditions and establish a voice for workers.

A former high-ranking California State University official collected more than $150,000 in improper expense reimbursements, including claims for unnecessary trips to Amsterdam and Shanghai, meals that exceeded allowable amounts and travel between his Northern California home and the university's Long Beach headquarters, a state audit has found. The audit, released Thursday, scolds the university for a lack of oversight in approving the expenses, saying they were "unnecessary and not in the best interest of the university or the state."

A House committee voted overwhelmingly Thursday in favor of a measure opposed by the Obama administration that would subject the Federal Reserve to unprecedented scrutiny. The 43-26 vote by the House Financial Services Committee came as the administration's push to enact sweeping changes to the financial regulatory system encountered stiff resistance on Capitol Hill amid growing discontent over the economy and efforts to speed its recovery. President Obama's allies in the Black Congressional Caucus, exasperated by the administration's handling of the economy, unexpectedly blocked one of his top priorities, using a legislative maneuver to postpone the approval of financial reform legislation by a key House committee.

Attention multimillionaires, the watchful eye of the Internal Revenue Service is trained on you. During last year's tax season, 30% of taxpayers making an adjusted gross annual income of $10 million or more were audited, the agency said, up from 18% in 2010. Overall, just 1.1% of individual income tax returns were checked. Nearly 21% of Americans making between $5 million and $10 million annually had their returns inspected, the IRS said; 12% of millionaires making less underwent the same process.

Attention, millionaires, the watchful eye of the Internal Revenue Service is trained on you. During last year's tax season, 30% of multimillionaires were audited, the agency said. Overall, just 1.1% of individual income tax returns were checked. Taxpayers making an adjusted gross annual income of $10 million or more are increasingly on the IRS' radar -- in 2010, just 18% of them faced audits, according to a report from the agency . Nearly 21% of Americans making between $5 and $10 million had their returns inspected, the IRS said; 12% of millionaires making less underwent the same process.