Audits

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.

As the watchdog of the government's massive bailout of the financial sector, Neil M. Barofsky had a simple question: What had the nation's banks done with all their bailout money? Can't be answered, said the Treasury Department, because of the way banks move money internally. The department declined to put the question to the banks.

Tarzana Treatment Center, the largest publicly funded provider of drug rehabilitation in Los Angeles County, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond what the law allows to lease buildings from its own executives and board members over the last year, according to a report by county auditors. The review was ordered by county supervisors in June after a Times story revealed that executives at the nonprofit receive compensation that is unusually high for the industry and benefit from other lucrative financial arrangements.

Los Angeles' approach to potential lawsuits is "reactionary and knee-jerk," often wasting taxpayer money in costly settlements and court judgments that could have been avoided, City Controller Laura Chick said Monday. Chick said the city paid $35 million in legal settlements in 2006, a figure she believes was driven up by a disorganized system in which each city department handles risk-management duties independently.

A soon-to-be-released Caltrans audit will assert that Placentia improperly spent as much as $36 million in state funds to pay for an ambitious rail-corridor project that drove the tiny north Orange County city to the brink of bankruptcy, state and municipal officials said Wednesday.

Los Angeles County auditors accused a private investigations company Wednesday of failing to fulfill a contract that required it to notify troubled parents if a judge was being asked to take away their children. Yoakum Investigations Inc. was hired in December 2005 by the Department of Children and Family Services to deliver notices to parents who were about to lose rights over their children.

State auditors questioned the California Highway Patrol in a report Tuesday about a costly executive airplane that auditors say was used to transport non-agency personnel and make trips that were either unnecessary or could have been made more economically by car. The report by state Auditor Elaine Howle also said the CHP spent an extra $11.4 million in motorcycle maintenance and other expenses because two existing contracts were voided because of an employee's conflict of interest.

Despite state goals to encourage alternative energy, no application to build a large solar power plant in California has been approved in 18 years, and new projects could face significant delays in the bureaucracy, the state auditor said Thursday. An audit found that power plants must go through multiple agencies for approval, and there is no one authority that can smooth the process.

An independent auditor hired by the Orange County Board of Supervisors has found the county's investment portfolio is being managed in a "thoughtful, prudent manner" by the elected treasurer and that the investment pools are sound, according to a report released Monday. The report appears to vindicate the management of the $6.

Lawmakers and regulators took aim at California health insurers Tuesday in efforts aimed at making sure they cover members' medical needs and pay physicians and hospitals what they owe them -- and on time. A day after the state Senate killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to expand healthcare coverage, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner vowed to make sure that current insurance laws were strictly enforced and ordered new audits of the state's largest health insurers.