Former Obama Administration Official Hid $175 Million In University Slush Fund
A recent audit of the University of California just discovered a secret stash of funds. Of course, Janet Napolitano claims she knew nothing!
And in typical Leftist double-dipping scandalous fashion, UC requested more money from the State of California while hiding their theft.
Apparently, the secret fund grew exponentially because of an overestimate of funding needs. If you believe Napolitano, the UC Office of the President made a simple clerical error.
As Conservative Read reported:
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Napolitano denied the audit’s claim. She reportedly said the money was held for any unexpected expenses. Her office also denied the amount.
“The true amount is $38 million, which is roughly 10 percent of (the office’s) operating and administrative budget, a prudent and reasonable amount for unexpected expenses such as cyber-security and emerging issues like increased support for undocumented students and efforts to prevent sexual violence and sexual harassment,” her office said in a statement.
Unexpected expenses? Like a WAR?!
Napolitano can deny this all she wants, but she knows the real figure is $175 million. And no doubt Napolitano learned from the best.
Her former boss, Barack Obama knows how to run up deficits and hide money in plain view.
The state auditor certainly agrees this is not merely an oversight.
Elaine Howle, the state auditor who came up with the report, found that from 2012 to 2016 the office looked to raise more funding by inflating estimates. Howle also said that a top staff member in Napolitano’s office improperly screened confidential surveys that were sent to each campus. Howle said answers that were critical of Napolitano’s office were deleted or changed before being sent to auditors.
“I’ve never had a situation like that in my 17 years as state auditor,” Howle said. “My attorneys are looking at whether any improper government activities occurred.”
The UC Board of Regents is now hearing calls to overturn its decision to increase tuition by 2.5 percent.
Howle said Napolitano also overcharged the system’s 10 campuses to fund its operations, paid its employees significantly more than state employees and interfered in the auditing process.
“Taken as a whole, these problems indicate that significant change is necessary to strengthen the public’s trust in the University of California,” Howle wrote in the report.
But it wasn’t that Napolitano planned for a rainy day. She took the money and hid it.
There was practically no oversight on these funds, thus Napolitano spent money like a Leftist lotto winner.
As the article explains,
The audit found that over the course of four years, the UC’s central bureaucracy amassed more than $175 million in reserve funds by spending significantly less than it budgeted for and asking for increases in future funding based on its previous years’ over-estimated budgets rather than its actual expenditures.
“In effect, the Office of the President received more funds than it needed each year, and it amassed millions of dollars in reserves that it spent with little or no oversight,” the report said.
Who does the UC university think it is…HARVARD?
Napolitano argues the amount accounts for 10 percent of the operating and administrative budget. She called it “a modest amount for an organization our size.”
The nerve of Napolitano amassing such a war chest, yet still raising tuition. Again, academia proves to be little more than a government larceny.
The CA employee union didn’t take the news lightly:
“Today we learned that after squandering millions of public dollars on bloated management and unaccountable ‘initiatives,’ (the Office of the President) has effectively been operating a slush fund that shields hundreds of millions of public dollars from public scrutiny,” said Kathryn Lybarger, president of UC’s largest employee union, said in a statement.
And where is the money going?
Well, it certainly couldn’t be because Leftists are overpaying the management team? After all, that type of activity is what evil capitalists do.
Yet, that’s part of the complaint by Lybarger:
She criticized the office’s “skyrocketing executive pay,” a reference to audit’s finding that the 10 executives in the office were paid a total of $3.7 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year — over $700,000 more than the combined salaries of their highest paid state employee counterparts.
Leftist embezzlers permeate California government. Recall in 2012, the director of the California Parks Department resigned after it came to light that the department hid $54 million in parks funding for more than a decade. During this time, the state threatened to close dozens of parks to save money amid a state budget crisis.
Just so we are clear for the Leftists who may happen upon this, California Leftists hid money in the parks department, as parks were being closed. So the money FOR THE PARKS was hidden in order to NOT SAVE THE PARKS!
The state auditor recommended new accounting methods, which were later adopted. Apparently, still too little too late.
