A nonprofit executive awarded state funds to her sister even though the service was available at a lower cost. A chief executive breached a confidential police tipline. And workers spent $900,000 on transportation - purposely spiking the budget to ensure more money the next year.
Those were some of the findings in a Bureau of State Audits report about state oversight of regional centers, nonprofit organizations that spend about $3.4 billion annually to serve 240,000 Californians with developmental disabilities.........
.........The Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review called for the probe of the Department of Developmental Services. Committee chairman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate, said the audit backed up what he heard in a prior hearing about "favoritism in contracting, a lack of information about how regional centers spend billions of public dollars per year, and the pervasive fear of retaliation among regional center staff and service providers."
