The Brief

Nearly six months into their labor union dispute against Southern California Kaiser Permanente, eight mental health care workers banded together last week in an organized five-day hunger strike to highlight their cause.

“Kaiser’s trying to starve us out, that’s clear — so, give them what they want,” said Adriana Webb, a member of the National Union of Healthcare Workers who chose to subsist solely on water and electrolytes from Monday morning through Friday evening. “I feel hungry for equity. I feel hungry for change. How is this any different?”

Now engaged in the longest mental health strike in U.S. history, the Southern California workers have been seeking a new union contract that would include:

• more mandated time between therapy sessions for patient follow up
• restoration of pension benefits that were removed from new employee contracts in 2015
• cost-of-living wage adjustments

After a long list of Democratic members of the state Assembly and Senate wrote Kaiser in December urging it to accept the union’s “reasonable contract proposals” — and after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Feb. 6 written request for both sides “to prioritize the common good that have allowed Californians to rise above our difficulties and resolve our differences” — state Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly and former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg have agreed to mediate.

Kaiser executives threw their hands up and walked out of mediation talks on March 11 when the union continued pressing its three major contract issues. Today bargaining talks are scheduled to resume.

Steinberg mediated a similar open-ended strike for Northern California Kaiser mental health care workers in 2022, which lasted 10 weeks and resulted in Kaiser meeting most of the union’s demands.

“We know Kaiser can provide all these things if they wanted to,” said Webb, a medical social worker in the infectious disease unit who stood on the picket line in front of Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center on Sunset Boulevard. “They already provide it to our Northern California counterparts, and all we’re asking for is the same thing. Kaiser still can’t explain why we deserve less or our patients deserve less.”

In a written response to CalMatters questions, Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Terry Kanakri discussed Kaiser’s overall commitment to work with more than 40 unions that represent 80% of its employees.

“Every one of the 80 contracts is different, and each reflects the differences in operational needs, local market economics and wages, professional classifications of the employees in each local, and a host of other factors,” said Kanakri.

“Our goal is and has always been to reach an agreement that makes Kaiser Permanente the best place to give and receive care. We have made — and repeatedly improved — our proposals during bargaining in an effort to reach an agreement. However, in nearly nine months of bargaining, NUHW has made very little movement on the key bargaining issues.”

Although not aware of any specific details of the 2022 NorCal strike or the current SoCal strikes, University of Southern California professor of healthcare finances and economics Glenn Melnick gave his overview on today’s health care labor climate.

“Northern California has the highest wage index in the country,” he said. “I think it’s 20 points higher than L.A. — maybe 25%. So there’s economic reasons why there’s differences. An economist would say, ‘Mental health care worker, you want these benefits? Move to San Francisco.’

“And many employers are cutting back pension benefits these days. Ten or 15 years ago, pension benefits were much more generous across the board. Kaiser could easily afford to give them these benefits and not think twice, but it’s bigger than just these workers. It’s the ripple effect, right?”

Melnick also speculated that health care workers’ negotiating power has waned as the COVID pandemic, which drove demand for their services, has somewhat subsided.

From April 8 through 12, the hunger strikers spent eight-hour days alongside their picketing fellow union members and each night together fasting at a West Hollywood church. Sleeping in a community space barely big enough for eight air mattresses huddled beside the piano against a back wall, they shared a bathroom and took turns showering in a motel room next door.

Medically cleared beforehand, they received daily wellness checks from volunteer union nurses.

“Right now, I feel like I could go another month,” said Zhane Sandoval, propped up on an elbow from their mattress on the morning of April 11, day four of the hunger strike. “So test me, Kaiser!

“Kaiser says that it’s a union employer, but all we’re seeing is union busting. All we’re seeing is separation, trying to divide. But their efforts just lead us to unite.”

Union organizer Rachel Forgash, who stayed overnight with the hunger strikers at the church, expressed frustration over the protracted standoff.

“Kaiser has exceeded all of our expectations in their unwillingness to bargain in good faith and drag this out as long as possible,” she said. “In Southern California, they’re about to start bargaining with the Alliance, which is a huge group of unions at Kaiser, and I think they’re afraid that — when we win — it’s going to set a precedent for other unions to fight just as hard.”

Aida Valvidia, a psychiatric social worker at Kaiser’s Sylmar facility, and Melissa Chavez, a medical social worker at Riverside, both started working for Kaiser before the 2015 contract negotiations reached a settlement, so they each have pension benefits that 70% of their fellow mental health care union members do not. Yet both chose to participate in the hunger strike.

“For the people who don’t have pensions, I think it’s unfair,” said Valvidia. “Why do I have a pension and you don’t? Because you started later? That makes no sense to me. We’re equals.”

Chavez and her husband have been on strike together since Oct. 21. “Kaiser members deserve equity and access to timely quality care,” she said. “Workers are experiencing high caseloads, inadequate and unsafe staffing, lack of time, lack of tools.”

The hunger strike week started with iconic labor leader and activist Dolores Huerta visiting the picketers on April 8, two days before her 95th birthday. “I know that you’re not just doing this on your own behalf,” said Huerta, surrounded by cheering union members in their red union T-shirts. “You’re actually doing this on behalf of all the patients at Kaiser that are not getting the mental health services that they deserve.”

The union cites a recent 88-page report from the state Department of Managed Health Care, which notes that Kaiser’s failures to remedy 19 of the 20 violations in 2022 led to $200 million in state fines. The union has also filed its own complaints alleging Kaiser mismanages patient triage and appointment scheduling, by hiring unlicensed clerical staff and using algorithmic programming.

“Despite the persistent efforts of NUHW to mislead the public, the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has not identified new deficiencies in our mental health care,” said Kanakri’s statement. It went on to say that Kaiser met with the state department “last week in our first quarterly review and demonstrated the extraordinary progress we have made on all the deficiencies outlined in the Corrective Action Work Plan.”

“We’re in disbelief,” said hunger striker Nick Nunez, a therapist in Kaiser’s Virtual Medical Center, which lends support to any patients in need across Southern California. “They take out ads in the paper saying everything’s fine — that they’re providing adequate care to their patients and everything is top-notch. It’s so bizarre and unbelievable.”

Andrew Kane worked as an associate clinical social worker at the Los Angeles Medical Center he now pickets and fasted at. “It’s a little odd, a little surreal,” he said, noting that he happened to see a patient in the world outside of Kaiser. “Fortunately — or unfortunately — he didn’t notice me, so we didn’t have to have that interaction.”

Kane started in June 2024, so he’s been on strike longer than he’s received a Kaiser salary.

As the strike persisted without end in sight since October, many workers have returned to Kaiser due to financial concerns. But some communicate the problems they see internally while back at work.

“They’re actually the ones documenting all the things going wrong,” said hunger striker Kassaundra Gutierrez-Thompson, a psychiatric social worker in Kaiser’s ADAPT virtual online treatment program. “We have DMHC investigators talking to a lot of our returned back staff. Unfortunately, a lot of our managers are combatting them.

“And so, a lot of our members are kind of scared, having to advocate for our patients.They’re fighting a different kind of battle inside.”

Rage Against the Machine guitarist and political labor activist Tom Morello joined the Kaiser picketers on April 9 to perform a short acoustic set, and U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo visited the strikers April 11.

Hours later, they broke their fast with religious leaders passing around a ceremonial bread loaf.
“We can’t just be treated like numbers,” said hunger striker Ana Vargas Garcia, who also saw members remotely through the ADAPT program. “Patients can’t be treated like numbers. There’s real lives behind everyone that we see, behind every worker at Kaiser. That’s a big part of why we’re doing this.”

Hours after the Trump administration sued California last week, threatening to end key benefits for students without legal status, Michelle was scrolling social media when she saw a video that made her panic.

The Trump administration is challenging California’s policy of providing in-state tuition, scholarships and subsidized loans to immigrants without legal status — including Michelle, an immigrant who is a community college student in San Mateo County. CalMatters has agreed to withhold her full name because she fears drawing attention to her legal status.

On TikTok, rumors swirled. Michelle saw a video of a young man, around her age, asking if the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is gone. In reality, FAFSA is still around, and while the new lawsuit could affect some students' financial aid, some top legal experts say the Trump administration is unlikely to win. Regardless, the court process may take weeks or much longer to resolve the government’s claims against California.

In the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice alleges that California’s policy of granting in-state tuition and financial aid for some students without legal status is unconstitutional. Federal lawyers also argue that California’s policies violate a 1996 federal law, which bars states from providing benefits to residents without legal status that aren’t also available to U.S. citizens who live anywhere in the U.S. The Justice Department is arguing that California either needs to drop the policy or let all U.S. citizens, including those who are out-of-state, pay the same rate.

In California, over 100,000 college students lack legal status, according to one estimate by an alliance of university leaders who advocate for immigrants. Federal assistance, such as Pell grants and federal student loans, are off-limits to anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen or does not have permanent legal status. California has its own money for college financial aid, which it distributes according to state law.

As long as individuals meet certain requirements, such as attending three years of high school in California, they’re eligible for in-state tuition, saving as much as $39,000 of dollars each year compared to their out-of-state peers. Once they meet those requirements, students without legal status can also qualify for the state’s cornerstone financial aid program, known as Cal Grant, though only a small fraction of these students actually apply for and receive it.

To Kevin Johnson, a law professor at UC Davis, Trump’s actions may be more about political wins than legal ones. “The Trump administration is engaged in a full-court press on undocumented immigrants and so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, and California and Governor Newsom in particular,” Johnson said. That the U.S. Department of Justice named the suit “United States of America v. Newsom” is another indication that this is political, he added.

Others noted that states have already invested in students without legal status and denying them an affordable path toward a college education is a waste of resources. Economists have pointed out that immigrants without status also are integral to the U.S. workforce and aren’t easily replaceable.

‘We didn’t expect them to go this low’

Even weak lawsuits or outright misinformation can make students nervous during November, when college and financial aid application season is in full swing.

On TikTok, videos of students panicking about the financial aid system surfaced last winter, after the Biden administration delayed and botched the rollout of the new FAFSA. Among its many glitches, the new form prevented students whose parents lacked a Social Security number from submitting their information.

After Trump was elected last November, fears about the total demise of federal financial aid swirled again on TikTok. Over the course of this year, as his administration targets universities and continues to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, those fears have persisted.

In California, Trump seeks to impose a $1 billion penalty on UCLA for alleged civil rights abuses, though a federal judge recently handed the White House a temporary loss on that front. His administration is also suing California colleges and universities for alleged antisemitism violations and has sought to freeze or curtail billions of dollars in federal research funding.

Much of those freezes have been blocked or reversed by federal judges, but hundreds of millions of dollars still remain cut off to campuses. Much, if not all, of those friction points between California and Trump could be resolved through settlements and negotiations, which are political in nature, said UCLA law professor Hiroshi Motomura in an interview.

Before Trump was elected, state leaders, including Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Chula Vista Democrat, pushed for California to offer additional benefits to students without legal status, such as the opportunity to work campus jobs.

Now, with access to financial aid programs at risk for these students, Alvarez said the focus is shifting. “We didn’t expect it would go this low as to go after students that the president had previously said should be welcomed here.” In 2024, Trump told a podcast host that students should “automatically” receive “a Green Card,” otherwise known as permanent residency, when they get their college diploma.

Legal scholars doubt Trump’s lawsuit will win

The lawsuit against California is the Trump administration’s sixth against states with policies allowing in-state tuition for students without legal status. The White House went after Texas first, in June. Underscoring how much of a bipartisan issue in-state tuition is, Texan lawmakers were the first in the U.S. to enshrine the policy in 2001. In all, more than 20 states passed some in-state tuition policy benefiting some residents without legal status.

Trump’s legal attacks on the policy this year prompted leaders in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas to side with the White House to terminate the benefit in those respective states. Some legal groups that want to continue in-state tuition for students lacking legal status are challenging those states’ moves.

Trump has also sued Minnesota and Illinois, states with Democrats as governors and attorneys general who are challenging Trump’s lawsuits.

The U.S. Department of Justice says that the federal law in question bars students without legal status from receiving in-state tuition and financial aid benefits based on their living in the state. This, the federal lawyers argue, violates federal law since public campuses in California require U.S. citizens from other states to pay higher tuition rates.

However, California’s law, Assembly Bill 540, doesn’t extend in-state tuition based on where students live, scholars and a previous court ruling say. Instead, students generally need to prove that they attended three years of high school or community college in California; they also need to earn in California a high school diploma or obtain enough community college credits to be eligible for transfer into a public university.

The Department of Justice says those three-year high school or community college requirements are tantamount to an in-state residency criteria and therefore violate the 1996 federal law.

But the California Supreme Court in 2010 already struck down that interpretation. The high court observed that some students living in areas bordering California are permitted to study at California high schools. High school students from out of state enrolled in private boarding schools also satisfy the requirement; they don’t count as residents of California either. And students who were residents of California during high school but moved to a different state could still enroll in California colleges or universities paying in-state tuition.

All of these scenarios require a student to complete the same AB 540 application as students who lack legal status. The only difference is that students without status must also complete an affidavit that they’ll pursue legal residency as soon as they can.

In fact, the University of California enrolled more students under AB 540 who were legal U.S. residents than those who weren’t, the state high court said then.

“If Congress had intended to prohibit states entirely from making unlawful aliens eligible for in-state tuition, it could easily have done so,” the state Supreme Court wrote in 2010. But Congress didn’t do that, the court noted.

Lawmakers in California who passed AB 540 in 2001 knew what the federal law restricted, said Motomura, and they crafted a state law that wouldn’t contravene what Congress intended. “It was drafted to avoid the residency test, and it was drafted to avoid the exclusion of U.S. citizens,” he said.

What’s likely next

California has already signaled that it will fight the lawsuit. “The Trump Administration has once again missed the mark with its latest attack on California, and we look forward to proving it in court,” wrote Nina Sheridan, a spokesperson for the California Department of Justice.

Both the UC and the community college system said their tuition and financial aid policies have always been legally compliant. The Cal State University system did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration may also seek a preliminary injunction to halt California’s in-state tuition law for nonresidents, which would again expose Californians to a seesaw of temporary court orders, sometimes contradictory in nature, while the full legal merits of the case play out slowly in court.

Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, thinks the U.S. Supreme Court will likely side with California despite its conservative orientation if the case goes that far.

A major legal question underscoring the case against California is when and how federal rules preempt or supersede state laws. The Trump White House is arguing California’s in-state policies are preempted by federal law. But the legal concept of preemption is a pillar in jurisprudence. Liberal and conservative interests benefit similarly from a consistent application of preemption as a legal concept, Saenz said. For example, businesses rely on preemption rules in situations where a state law is more progressive or consumer-friendly than a federal rule and want courts to defend them from following the more demanding state rules.

The U.S. Supreme Court is “going to be very wary of making bad law in the realm of preemption, because it could then come back to bite the right wing in protecting businesses,” Saenz said.

For Michelle and other students without legal status navigating their own financial aid applications — and the misinformation online — a series of temporary court orders could create more panic. Financial aid is top of mind, said Michelle, but she doesn’t have time to track the legal back-and-forth of her eligibility.

In addition to being a full-time student, Michelle works four days a week at a restaurant, saving up money not only to support herself but also her family. She’s the oldest of four kids and said she sends $500 to her parents each month.

College is “an opportunity for me to be someone in life, to make my parents proud,” she said. Asked about the lawsuit at the cafeteria of her college, Michelle made a choking gesture with her hand, as though the threat of losing financial aid next year could kill her. “Trump is taking that opportunity away because he doesn’t like immigrants.”

The deadline to submit financial aid applications for community college is Sept. 2, but Michelle is already working on her application, just in case.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The National Park Service said Tuesday it is going to start charging the millions of international tourists who visit U.S. parks each year an extra $100 to enter some of the most popular sites, while leaving them out of fee-free days that will be reserved for American residents.

The announcement declaring "America-first entry fee policies" comes as national parks deal with the strain of a major staff reduction and severe budget cuts, along with recovering from damage during the recent government shutdown and significant lost revenue due to fees not being collected during that time.

The fee change will impact 11 national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

As part of the changes, which are set to take effect Jan. 1, foreign tourists will also see their annual parks pass price jump to $250, while U.S. residents will continue to be charged $80, according to the department's statement.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a post on the social platform X that the changes make sure U.S. taxpayers who support the park service "continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations!"

A White House post on X laying out the increased fees ended with the phrase, "AMERICANS FIRST."

The announcement follows a July executive order in which President Donald Trump directed the parks to increase entry fees for foreign tourists.

"There's a lot to unpack in this announcement, including many questions on its implementation – all which NPCA will raise with the Department of Interior," Kati Schmidt, a spokesperson for National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email.

The U.S. Travel Association estimated that in 2018, national parks and monuments saw more than 14 million international visitors. Yellowstone reported that in 2024, nearly 15% of its visitors were from outside the country, which was down from 30% in 2018.

The money made off the new fees will help support the national parks, including with upgrading facilities for visitors and maintenance, according to the statement.

The "resident-only patriotic fee-free days" next year include Veterans Day, which was one of the parks' eight free days open to everyone in 2025. The Department of the Interior had announced those days by saying they wanted to ensure that "everyone, no matter their zip code, can access and enjoy the benefits of green spaces and our public lands."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Wednesday is gearing up to be the warmest and windiest day of the week just before Thanksgiving.

In L.A. County, temperatures along the coast will range from 70 to 78 degrees and up to 82 degrees in the valleys.

The Orange County coast will see partly cloudy skies with highs of up to 78 degrees. Inland will be slightly warmer, with highs up to 81 degrees.

For the Inland Empire, temperatures will range from 76 to 82 degrees — same for Coachella Valley.

Santa Ana wind forecast

It's going to be another breezy day, but let's take a look at some of the blusterier areas today.

We're looking at gusts up to 45 mph for the 5 Freeway corridor, and up to 40 mph for parts of the western San Gabriel Mountains.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, Agoura Hills, Calabasas and surrounding areas, wind gusts should range from 30 to 35 mph. Isolated gusts could reach up to 40 mph.

In the Inland Empire, gusts could also reach up to 30 mph.

One of L.A.’s biggest homeless service providers has been awarded over $100 million in taxpayer funds while failing to comply with federal audit mandates, according to an LAist review of federal government records.

The downtown L.A.-based nonprofit Weingart Center is at the heart of a controversial property purchase under federal investigation and discussed in a recent criminal indictment of the developer who sold the property.

LAist found Weingart Center also has been continuously out of compliance with federal deadlines to turn in audits — known as “single audits” — since early 2022, based on a review of records in the federal database where they have to be uploaded.

The audits for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 were each finished a year and a half after the federal deadlines, according to the dates on those reviews. The audits show multiple failures by Weingart Center to properly account for taxpayer money that were not remedied from one year to the next.

The group still has not filed an audit that was due nine months ago for its fiscal year ending in April 2024, according to the federal database and L.A.’s regional homeless services agency.

Consequences for failing to turn in a single audit by the deadline can be significant. Federal agencies can cut off any further funds to groups that are overdue, and L.A.’s homeless services agency can do the same, according to a contract with Weingart Center.

Weingart Center has received over $100 million in taxpayer funds while it’s been out of compliance with turning in the audits, according to its latest public tax filing and an LAist review of the audits.

Among the funds the group received while out of compliance is a $9 million no-bid contract L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office directed officials to award Weingart Center in 2023 to run the largest shelter site in her signature homelessness program.

A Weingart Center audit also was overdue when the mayor and state officials greenlit the group’s taxpayer-funded purchase of a senior living facility in Cheviot Hills. Federal prosecutors earlier this month announced charges against the man who sold the property to Weingart Center.

Former state Sen. Kevin Murray, who has been Weingart Center’s president and CEO since 2011, has not returned LAist’s messages seeking comment.

Murray and Weingart Center’s chief of real estate development, Ben Rosen, have been placed on leave, according to the L.A. Times. Rosen also has not responded to LAist’s request for comment.

The nonprofit’s board has commissioned an outside investigation into the valuation of housing projects, Weingart Center spokesperson Stefan Friedman told LAist. He did not respond to questions about the audit failures.

Murray previously served in the state Legislature with Bass, who has not responded to a request for comment for this story.

Murray is an attorney and a licensed real estate broker. In addition to leading Weingart Center, he also has a local government role overseeing homelessness spending in the region.

Bass appointed him to the board that oversees hundreds of millions a year in government spending on housing and other programs from the Measure A tax approved by L.A. County voters last year.

The spending panel — known as LACAHSA — oversees just over a third of the roughly $1 billion expected to be generated each year from Measure A. Its job is to create new affordable homes, preserve existing lower-rent housing and prevent people from losing the housing they already have.

This September, Bass also nominated Rosen — the Weignart Center real estate chief — to the spending board as an alternative city appointee to step in when Murray can’t attend. She withdrew that nomination a few days after federal authorities announced their investigation into the property flip.

‘Disappointed’ it wasn’t caught sooner

A large share of the federal money Weingart Center received was distributed by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, a joint city-county agency known as LAHSA.

LAHSA’s contract requirements say its vendors, like Weingart Center, have to comply with the single audit requirements in federal law. Those requirements say organizations that receive a certain amount of federal money — such as Weingart Center — have to submit the audits within nine months after their fiscal year ends.

Single audits are “the single most important way” to assess an organization’s ability to manage federal dollars, federal officials say.

Among other things, they check whether a group has an accounting system to accurately document the spending.

Weingart Center was long overdue turning in two annual audits for 2023 and 2024 to LAHSA when LAist contacted LAHSA on Oct. 23.

Weingart Center has since submitted its 2023 audit to LAHSA, but the 2024 audit remains overdue.

“We are currently evaluating options regarding next steps,” LAHSA spokesperson Ahmad Chapman told LAist on Nov. 20.

LAHSA’s new interim CEO, Gita O’Neill, told LAist she’s “disappointed” the homeless services authority didn’t catch Weingart Center’s late audits earlier and that she’s been working to beef up oversight of contractors.

O’Neill said LAHSA sent a notice of non-compliance to Weingart Center about the overdue audit and is reviewing the late-submitted audits to see “if additional action is needed.”

At the October meeting of LAHSA’s governing commission, O’Neill shared a plan to improve the agency’s oversight of contracts, which she told LAist will strengthen oversight over issues like single audits. O’Neill, who started at LAHSA in late August, said the reorganization plan would roll out publicly in a few weeks later.

“Every member of this reorganized team will receive training for their new role so we can more effectively hold our [service] providers to the standards we set for them,” O’Neill said. “This is an important step toward holding ourselves and our providers more accountable.”

What state officials say

Aside from LAHSA, the other major agency awarding federal dollars to Weingart Center is the state’s Department of Housing & Community Development, or HCD.

Records show HCD awarded tens of millions of dollars in federally funded grants to Weingart Center under the state’s Homekey program while the group has been out of compliance with turning in the audits.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for HCD said Weingart Center was not out of compliance with its award-granting process, which the agency called “very thorough.”

HCD’s agreement with Weingart Center for a 2024 grant says the nonprofit is responsible for complying with the single audit requirements.

The HCD spokesperson said the state housing agency is not responsible for reviewing the federal audits. Instead, the spokesperson said the audits are received and reviewed by the state controller’s office, which then identifies issues and discusses them with HCD.

The controller’s office told LAist it did not receive single audits from Weingart Center or any other nonprofit.

Problems found in latest available audit

The most recent available single audit of Weingart Center, covering fiscal year 2023, was not completed until July 2025, a year and a half after it was due.

That audit report, which LAist obtained from LAHSA, said Weingart Center followed the most important requirements for nonprofits receiving federal funds but also found a range of accounting failures.

The problems identified by auditors included:

• Weingart Center did not include over $50 million in federally funded grants, via HCD’s Homekey program, on the list of federal dollars it handled. The review also found Weingart Center failed to have its financial records checked for accuracy by someone who didn’t prepare them, auditors wrote. 
• Weingart Center did not have an accounting team with enough experience or size to handle housing developments, the review found — despite the problem being flagged in the prior year’s audit. This was one of six problems identified in the previous year's audit that the 2023 audit showed as ongoing.
• Other repeat issues flagged by the audit include Weingart Center failing to properly document money coming into the organization, management failing to catch errors in how it was accounting for money and failing to document how it picked vendors — including the general contractor for a Homekey housing project.

The Weingart Shelby purchase

Weingart Center has been the focus of recent controversy over its use of $27 million in taxpayer funds to buy a senior housing complex from an investor who had just purchased it for less than half that price.

As Weingart Center’s leader, Murray signed key documents in the purchase of the property on Shelby Drive in Cheviot Hills, according to contract records produced by the city in response to LAist public records requests. The documents he signed include a purchase agreement in which he agreed to have Weingart Center keep the seller’s name confidential forever from the news media and general public, with narrow exceptions.

That purchase now is the focus of a federal investigation and was referenced in an October indictment of the man who sold the property to Weingart Center. It was funded by the state’s Homekey program and the city of L.A.

Murray previously told the L.A. Times he had “no prior relationship with the seller and no continuing relationship” and that taxpayers paid fair market price. He has not returned LAist’s messages seeking comment on the property deal.

LAist also has been investigating the sale of the Shelby property and found numerous discrepancies. They include an appraisal report Murray commissioned and submitted for taxpayer funding that showed false information about the purchase deal and the property’s ownership.

[Click here to read LAist’s article exploring the property flip, published today.]

Price concerns about another Murray-led project under same state grant program

The Shelby purchase is not the only Weingart Center property deal that has faced scrutiny.

This summer, city leaders in Torrance publicly alleged the group may have been massively overpaying for a hotel property under a new round of taxpayer-funded Homekey grants. For that site, Weingart Center had teamed up with L.A. County to apply for the grant.

It was one of several criticisms Torrance officials cited in urging the county not to proceed. Ultimately, the project was canceled.

Records show Murray had signed a purchase agreement for Weingart Center to buy the Torrance hotel for $30 million in taxpayer funds. An appraisal he later commissioned found its fair market value was close to the amount he agreed to.

But an appraisal commissioned by Torrance estimated it was worth just $10 million — a third of what Weingart had agreed to pay with taxpayer dollars.

Property valuations are being reviewed by the outside law firm hired by Weingart Center’s board, according to the nonprofit’s spokesperson.

Officials at the county government’s housing agency, known as LACDA, say the appraisal Weingart Center submitted for the Torrance purchase “was conducted by a reputable appraisal company and did not raise concerns.”

Torrance officials, meanwhile, said they had “serious concerns” about how much taxpayers would be paying.

City leaders sent a letter urging the state to reject the grant application.

“This purchase price appears significantly inflated and represents a potential misuse of taxpayer dollars,” they wrote.