$1.5 Million in Taxpayer Money Used on Unused Phone Numbers

The County of Los Angeles has gone ahead and busted themselves. "This is government at its worst," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky was quoted saying in the LA Times. "We have a problem, no question about it. But we are going to move quickly to fix it." The county started auditing themselves after they found over 300 unused lines at the now-closed Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. The $1.5 million number only totals what they've discovered so far and it could double when they finish with 16,000 useless lines. Any savings is good news, especially in this economy, but the County has a long way to go. The $22.8 billion budget has department heads trying to cut as much as 13%.