A salute to California’s great auditor
Elaine Howle has always been an outstanding state auditor for California.
Howle, who announced last week that she will retire at the end of the year, has been a beacon in the fog, shining a light on waste, fraud, abuse and boondoggle projects that fail to live up to the promises made to the people of California.
Howle’s excellence has been recognized with countless awards, including top honors this year from the International Business Awards, which appreciated that even during the pandemic, the California state auditor “picked up the pace, and tackled some of the toughest challenges in rapid succession.”
Elected officials and bureaucrats have been dismayed on a regular basis to see reports from Howle’s office that called them out for mismanagement or worse. Most recently, the auditor has been tracking the billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 emergency relief funds, finding that the state could be forced to return $160 million in education funds to the federal government along with tens of millions of dollars allocated to the Board of State and Community Corrections because the money was mismanaged or unspent.
In August, Howle’s office issued an update on “highrisk” statewide issues and agencies that needed more scrutiny due to the risk of “waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement or major challenges associated with economy, efficiency, or effectiveness.” The Departments of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Technology, Health Care Services and Public Health made the list.
In 2017, Howle exposed a hidden $175 million slush fund in the office of former University of California president Janet Napolitano and asked the excellent question, “why did we need to increase tuition if the Office of the President has $175 million in reserve that nobody knew about?”
She also nailed the Employment Development Department with a report in January titled, “EDD’s Poor
Planning and Ineffective Management Left it Unprepared to Assist Californians Unemployed by COVID-19 Shutdowns.”
Howle has issued dire reports about the costly delays, failures and risks of California’s $1 billion FI$Cal technology project, an overhaul of the state’s accounting systems that has been a decadelong mess. And she probably won’t be invited to any holiday parties thrown by the High-Speed Rail Authority after writing a report with this conclusion featured prominently in the title: “Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System’s Construction.”
A certified public accountant as well as a certified government financial manager, Howle has been California’s independent, nonpartisan state auditor for more than 21 years, producing reports that regularly go beyond chronicling the problems to offer recommendations that would prevent the problems in the future.
In 2019, Howle audited the spending of education funds targeted to help low-income students and English learners under the Local Control Funding Formula that was adopted in 2013. She recommended that districts be prohibited from converting targeted funds left over at the end of the year into generalpurpose funds the following year. Gov. Gavin Newsom has just signed a bill that makes that recommendation state law.
Elaine Howle has set the standard for what a public official should be, dedicated to making government work effectively and efficiently, pursuing accountability when it falls short, and fearlessly standing up for the public interest.
We’re grateful for her service and wish her happiness in her next chapter.