The latest critique comes in a new report, “Data Reliability,” by State Auditor Elaine M. Howle. Subtitle: “State Agencies’ Computer-Generated Data Varied in Their Completeness and Accuracy.” Some key sections:

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), whose standards we follow, requires us to assess and report on the reliability of computer-processed information that we use to support our audit findings, conclusions, and recommendations….

Three assessemnts were made: “sufficiently reliable,” “not sufficiently reliable” and “undetermined reliability”:

In performing 53 data reliability assessments for State systems, we determined for the purposes of the audits that the data were sufficiently reliable in 19 assessments….

For 17 data reliability assessments, we concluded that the data were not sufficiently reliable….

For 17 data reliability assessments, we concluded that the data had undetermined reliability. 

So 36 percent were “sufficiently reliable.” And 64 percent were not.

Would the private sector be allowed to get away with that? If a business’ tax returns to the IRS were only 36 percent “sufficiently reliable,” the chief managers would end up in a federal klink. More:

For example, data from two California State University (CSU) systems were of undetermined reliability. We did not perform accuracy and completeness testing for CSU’s Common Financial System because the system contains summary-level data and we determined that it would not be cost-effective to trace this summary-level data back to the individual transactions that support the total. Likewise, we could not assess data reliability for CSU’s Common Management System by tracing to and from supporting documents because the system is primarily paperless. Alternatively, following GAO guidelines, we could have reviewed the adequacy of selected system controls to determine whether data were entered reliably. However, because it was cost prohibitive, we did not conduct these reviews.

So what we have here is basic government incompetence. The state general fund gets $110 billion of our tax dollars, but its data systems are basically unreliable. We have no idea how the money in government is spent, nor how effective it is at what it’s advertised to do.

“In his campaign to stop California from building the nation’s first high-speed rail system, Chris Reed (calwatchdog.com, June 9, 2014) continues to rely on distortion and misinformation, this time citing a recent erroneous account in the Los Angeles Times. On May 15, the newspaper published the following  from California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Jeff Morales:

‘”The Times’ recent story about California’s high-speed rail program may have left the strong impression among readers that project costs have increased.

‘”In fact, they have not.

‘”If anything, project costs have declined slightly compared with past estimates, and we continue to find ways to lower costs as the program proceeds.”‘

“While there is no way to completely eliminate risk on a program of this scale, Mr. Reed should know that the California High-Speed Rail Authority continues to be subject to rigorous review by independent experts — including the California  High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group and the U.S. Government Accountability Office — and has implemented a state-of-the-art risk management program, which uses detailed modeling to quantify risk and incorporates best practices from programs worldwide.”

I’ll let Dan have his say and respond later this week.

By Chris Reed

Is there ever any hard, legit good news about the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan to build a state bullet-train network?

The stories last week about the U.S. Government Accountability Office depicting CHSRA’s ridership estimates as reasonable were only positive if you ignored all the GAO commentary about the unlikelihood of the full bullet-train network being built.

Now comes the San Jose Mercury-News with yet another batch of bullet-train bad news:

“While much of the squabbling over California’s high-speed rail project has focused on its huge construction price tag, the cost to taxpayers just to plan the bullet train is also soaring.

“California rail leaders said Tuesday it will cost an extra $97 million in office and field work to design the rail line, which has famously seen its construction cost double to $69 billion since voters approved it five years ago. The extra state and federal funds set aside for planning will wind up in the pockets of private consulting firms, including some that earn billions of dollars in annual revenue.

“Rail officials say much of the latest increase is because of delays to the project’s aggressive timeline and the need to study alternative plans aimed at appeasing concerns of communities along the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles rail corridor.

“For instance, the California High-Speed Rail Authority board Thursday is set to approve an extra $38 million for mega-firm URS to work on clearing state and federal bureaucratic hurdles required before construction can begin in the Central Valley this summer. That $158 million effort dates back six years and was supposed to be done by now, but has been delayed because residents between Fresno and Bakersfield have asked the state to study different locations to lay tracks, a time-consuming and costly endeavor.

“Rail officials say the new pre-construction planning budget of $878 million, while an increase of 12 percent, is still within the limit approved by voters in 2008.”

So here’s the challenge to the Robert Cruickshanks of California: Where are the stories that will make the voters who backed Prop 1A in 2008 think they did the right thing? Where are the stories that will make those voters think that California providing $9.95 billion in bond seed money made any sense?

Bob? Bob? Bob?