Bart Stupak

Two domestic enemies of the US Constitution threw in the towel today. Congressman Bart Stupak (above), a distant relative of Judas Iscariot, and US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced they were retiring at the end of their respective terms.

There is real hope that Stupak will be replaced by someone of better principles. Justice Stevens will likely be replaced by someone with more disdain for our republic and way of life.  Hopefully, many more will follow Stupak “into that good night.”

Money Woes in State Government

The State Controller’s Office (SCO) is once again delaying cash reimbursements to State employees for travel expenses. Whether this is a software issue or a result of budget shortfalls is not known. This is in addition to the spending freeze that is in place in parts of the government.

The CalATERS (California Automated Travel Expense Reimbursement System) program used by the Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been down frequently for over six weeks now. The amount of man-hours wasted by users trying to make use of this program is incredible. Its failure is approaching that of the DMV boondoggle of several years ago and thus far the media has not gotten wind of this problem.  SCO has responded with mass approvals and deletions of unaudited claims but the problems still persists.

I can’t wait until Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner gets their hands on the waste, fraud and abuse of systems like CalATERS. This system is so contrary to GAAP that it should never have gone live; let alone been rolled-out for use by agencies of State government.

Here are some shortcomings of the program.
• CalATERS cannot check for duplicate claims for the same trip or expenses.
• Approvers do not have to be immediate supervisors or even in the chain of command for employees.
• Receipts are not required for reimbursement of many transactions.
• There is no procedure to report waste, fraud or abuse of expenses charged directly to the State.
• Auditors have no written policies or uniform standards and training to audit claims.
• Due to system shortcomings, archive data further back than about three months cannot be pulled-up on the computers of auditors. Detailed claim history should be available for at least three fiscal years including the current one.
• Since multiple Regional Accounting Offices (RAOs) are pooled together, there are no clear cut delineations of which employee reports to a particular RAO.

RAKC v Mettler

There are some formations that any sports fan will recognize. The bunt situation, the goal line stand, the fourth and inches play, and the empty net when the goalie gets pulled.

In politics there is one formation that Republicans instinctively utilize to insure defeat in the face of certain victory. My friends and I refer to this formation as the “circular firing squad.” This is when conservative republicans behave irrationally and decide to sacrifice one of their own that might be pulling ahead of the others.

This week the Republican Assembly of Kern County (R.A.K.C.) executed this maneuver on Ken Mettler. Mettler is a past president of RAKC and recently resigned as President of the statewide California Republican Assembly to pursue an opportunity to run for State Assembly in the 32nd District.

The RAKC decided to go public with their accusations without confronting Mettler and giving him the opportunity to respond. To summarize their charges against Mettler, they accuse Mettler of spending almost $500 over a ten month period (see chart below) without authorization by the Executive Board. Additionally, they charge him with “disposed of all of the historical documents of R.A.K.C./B.R.A. from before the time of his presidency.”

– Date—- Amount Charge against Ken Mettler
01/30/2009   $174.25 Investigate possible campaign rival
02/09/2009     $22.25 Investigate possible campaign rival
11/03/2009   $56.03 Investigate possible campaign rival
11/04/2009     $63.93 Investigate possible campaign rival
11/05/2009     $83.33 Investigate background on Rob Badewitz
February09   $100.00 New bank account
———-Total $499.79

RAKC has taken or said they will take the following actions to address their grievances with Mr. Mettler.
• Hold vote to expel Ken Mettler from RAKC. (Mettler is currently on board of RAKC as immediate past president).
• Postpone indefinitely the local endorsing convention that was called for April 5th.
• Turn over this matter to BPD (Bakersfield Police Department?) and the FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission)

My first thought upon reading the release from the Republican Assembly of Kern County was the Scriptural admonition to settle things before you get to the judge and if you find fault in your brother go to him first and try to get things resolved. The fact that Martin Bertram immediately goes public with accusations without trying to resolve the situation within RAKC does not pass the “smell test.” That RAKC Board members during this period were not even interviewed by Mr. Bertram before concluding his findings is both sloppy and shameful.

Mr. Bertram is embarrassing himself, his organization, the CRA and the California Republican Party by his actions. This is just as stupid as Steve Poizner complaining to California Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate Meg Whitman because she tried to maneuver him out of the race.

In our local central committee we discovered that a former chairman has embezzled over $60,000 and it was decided not to go to the authorities because of the harm it would do to the organization and the Republican Party. Bertram is upset about $500 being spent in ten months? I’m sure Mr. Mettler has receipts for thousands of dollars that came out of his pocket as President of RAKC and CRA that he never sought reimbursement for from either group. Not to mention the wages that he forfeited because he was working for the Party.

If Mr. Bertram was dealing realistically in this matter, the most he should have done is demanded that Ken Mettler give RAKC a check for $500 and then implement a policy to prevent this from happening any more.

I have been a treasurer in many organizations. I always keep copies of all checks that I deposit and match any check that I write with a receipt when I issue the check. My experience is that it is usually others in the group that try to skirt the rules. Sometimes the only documentation that I get is an email requesting that a check be given to a person for a specific purpose. Collecting receipts after the fact is difficult. When the treasurer is lax then things can get out of hand. Clearly this is the case here.

First, concerning records of the club, per bylaws provided by Mr. Bertram, the club Secretary is in charge of archiving club documents not the president.

Concerning the endorsing convention, Bertram does not have the power as a unit president to cancel an endorsing convention because he lacks the power to call it in the first place. This is the right of a CRA vice-president or Senate District Director. Only if all of AD 32 falls within the territory of RAKC could a single CRA chapter decide an endorsement. This is not the case in AD 32. Part of AD 32 is in San Bernardino County and there is a second CRA chapter in Kern County.

As for a call to remove Mettler from RAKC, the vote threshold to do this is a super majority (3/4 of members present). I doubt that Bertram will get the votes to do this.

It is my experience that the CRA State Board is reluctant to act against a member or local chapter in much more clear-cut and blatant violations of ethics and bylaws than those alleged by Mr. Bertram in this case.

Clearly the censure of Ken Mettler by the Republican Assembly of Kern County is meant to tarnish the reputation of Mettler and hurt his chances in the June primary. No other conclusion can be drawn from the way this was handled.  Mr. Bertram, the fact you even emailed me about this is proof that I am right.

Sincerely,

William

CRA State Board member
Treasurer, Cosumnes RA
Sacramento County Republican Party

What Budget Problems?

Today, the powers that be decreed that any claims for travel reimbursement in the Department of Corrections—that were submitted within a certain period of time—will be approved with no verification.  Unless a CalATERS claim fails the “smell test” of an auditor the claim will be approved and any supporting documents will be audited at a later date. This is supposed to be implemented on a department-wide basis.

This initiative seems to originate from the State Controller’s Office as a way to fix the fact that the CalATERS program cannot handle the load or number of users from CDCR. The number of man-hours wasted on this program would likely pay for one that could do the job.

Meanwhile the “hard freeze” on travel is still in effect.

Update 02-24-2010 free pass period seems to be primarily for January 2010. Per email today goal is shedding 3,000 claims ASAP to reduce load on system.
This seems like a Band-Aid for systemic program design failure.

Out of Touch Arnold

“Schwarzenegger says last year’s $862 billion stimulus plan is “terrific” and has created 150,000 jobs in his state…”—AP 2/21/2010

Hey Arnold, the stimulus bill has created no new jobs in the private sector in California and we all know it. If you really want to create jobs in California, turn on the water to the Central Valley farmers and tell the federal judge to go pound sand.

California Correction’s Hard Freeze on Spending

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is implementing a hard freeze on spending as a temporary step to address a significant anticipated fiscal shortfall. The following areas are immediately frozen:
• Hiring
• Training
• Travel
• Contracts for discretionary services
• Purchases
• Overtime for Administration

“The hard freeze will remain in effect until such time as the Department is able to prioritize and then establish a system for authorizing expenditures.”

Unions Attack Whitman

Union front groups have started running ads against Meg Whitman because she is being supported by big business and she opposes global warming.

The unions have 40 million to spend tampering with the Republican primary and their two biggest complaints about Meg are those! If that is their best shot, then Meg has little to fear from the Left. What a waste of money. Any business that supports a Democrat deserves to fail. Any rational person that supports AB 32 should not be allowed to vote because their IQ is negative.

The union motto should be Democrats: same old playbook, same old politicians, same old results.

Ok who is older? Jerry Brown or Robert Byrd

CalATERS Crawl

I work for an obscure part of the accounting department within the California Department of Corrections (CDCR). We have three computer systems used for various accounting functions. None of the computers can talk to each other. At best data from one system can be batch dumped into another system.

The mainframe system seems like it was state-of-the-art when Ronald Reagan was President. Much of accounting is done via a program from SAP. Travel expenses are done via a custom application designed for Windows XP. This program runs in a Java “sandbox.”

Recently, the “sandbox” has gotten filled. Hundreds of man-hours are wasted just trying to log-on to the system. This program is the primary application that people in my unit are supposed to be running. Lately, many in my office have gone a day or two at a time without being able to log-on or process travel claims.

The ultimate organization that controls this program is the State Controller’s Office (SCO). Unfortunately, SCO is caught with their cyber pants around their ankles and a look of bewilderment. Instead of being prepared for a department wide implementation of the program by CDCR, they have been caught unaware.

Now this program has been in its current form since 2001. Requiring all institutions to use the program was a deliberate decision and I’m confident that SCO said no problem when they heard CDCR would begin requiring the use of the program. Only about 26,000 people in the department are even registered users. That’s less than 1/3 of CDCR employees.

SCO supposedly upgraded their servers and maxed-out RAM in the system last week-end. It has resulted in no noticeable improvement in the functioning of the travel program. The bottom line is that there are too many users trying to connect simultaneously and the system—no doubt built with millions in tax dollars by the lowest bidder—is unable to handle the real world conditions.

It will be interesting to see how the long this situation persists.