San Diego Union Tribune: Kroll report details misconduct that lead to financial crisis

“Consultants investigating the city’s finances issued a detailed and critical report Tuesday documenting misconduct by former and current City Council members and former top administrators.

“San Diego city leaders ‘fell prey’ to the same type of ‘corruption of financial management’ that afflicted Orange County before it sought bankruptcy and corporations like Enron before it collapsed, the 266-page report issued by Kroll Inc. stated.”

New York Times: San Diego Broke Laws in Pension Crisis, Panel Says

“Independent experts brought in to help San Diego dig its way out of a deepening financial hole said yesterday that city officials broke federal securities laws and other statutes as they tried to conceal their failure to put enough money into the city’s pension fund for police, firefighters and other public employees. The investigators, led by a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, Arthur Levitt Jr., recommended that San Diego be placed under the supervision of an independent monitor who would report to the S.E.C.”

Also see:

1. Key findings in Kroll report
2. Report of the Audit Committee of the city of San Diego

Unrelated to the Pension Crisis: Mayor calls accounting ‘sloppy bookkeeping’

“San Diego should reimburse its water and sewer funds more than $1 million to correct accounting errors that led to the city’s ratepayers being charged for work that should have been paid out of tax revenue, Mayor Jerry Sanders said yesterday.”