As a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Financial Planner, John Moorlach began his career in public service 20 years ago when he warned that then Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert Citron’s risky investment strategies would lead to bankruptcy. Moorlach’s warnings proved true when Orange County filed for bankruptcy protection in December 1994, then the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. He was appointed the county Treasurer-Tax Collector in 1995 and was twice re-elected. In 2006, voters elected John to serve in his first of two terms on the Board of Supervisors, where he continued his focus on reforming the county’s budget practices and sounding the alarm on the county’s growing unfunded liabilities. He served from 2015 to 2020 as the State senator for the 37th Senate district. He is now a senior fellow and director of CPC’s Center for Public Accountability.
Using a simple metric, only six Inland Empire cities in California saw much movement in the fiscal rankings of its 52 cities for the year ending June 30, 2020 compared to the previous year (see “Every City in the Inland Empire Ranked According to Financial Health,” June 30, 2023). The majority stayed pretty much in...
During my business career as a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Financial Planner, I also served on a credit counseling nonprofit board and advised those who were deep in debt on a plan toward becoming fiscally sound again. During a good financial year, these individuals needed to dramatically reduce their existing debts. The unexpected bonus...
It’s impressive how many different preferences people can have. Although bottled water is ubiquitous today, in the late 1970s, those living a conspicuous lifestyle purchased bottled water, like Perrier, to show off their success and affluence, while emphasizing healthy living practices and hygiene. Most business offices had a water cooler and were willing to pay...
The city of Westminster is pursuing the easy road to address its continuing fiscal mismanagement, again. It’s asking its residents to approve yet another sales tax increase, the second in the last two years. It’s much easier to tell those voting in Westminster that there will be more potholes and less public safety if they...
California has 482 cities and towns. They provide audited financial statements of their fiscal status every year, just like publicly traded companies and most businesses and nonprofits of significant stature. Finance hawks celebrated when the California State Auditor established a dashboard to review the fiscal status of the state’s cities and towns. The cheering subsided...
The city of Huntington Park, California has finally released its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) for the year ending June 30, 2020. The audit by external independent auditors was finally completed on Aug. 10, but was not released until Dec. 5. Thus, Huntington Park won the race for dead last in transparency and accountability among...
In their book, “Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems,” William Eggers and Donald Kettl make a simple observation: “Accountability and trust go hand in hand.” What if a government doesn’t provide transparency that allows for accountability? It makes building trust very difficult. What happens when a government is so shell-shocked from...
There are several metrics that can be used to effectively rank the fiscal status of our nation’s 50 states. The top resource for years, when one searched for this information, was the Mercatus School at George Mason University. US News & World Report has and continues to provide an annual ranking of the states. The...
California’s fiscal accountability dashboard for cities, which was implemented in 2019 and identified local governments with financial problems, was taken down last month. Why? First, some background. The County of Orange in Southern California incurred an infamous fiscal calamity in the closing month of 1994 that resulted in nearly $1.7 billion in investment losses. It...
There are two big days for a California governor, January 10 when the budget is presented and the May Revise when a few months of additional data and debate have passed. They’re both political documents, allowing governors to play with numbers. Few governors have been as sporting in that enterprise as Gavin Newsom. Last week,...
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