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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

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Maybe L.A. County Needs an Independent Controller

countysealaudit.jpeg

One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.

Los Angeles has the Office of the Controller, an elected position that is the city's fiscal and performance watchdog. If you're doing something wrong, you might be caught and called out publicly after an audit. A recent internal county audit finds that some Supervisors control policy decisions behind the scenes. That report, however, was not made publicly available and it took the LA Times some work to obtain it. "County officials initially declined to release the audit, but after extensive conversations with The Times, the report was released late Thursday," said the paper, which put up a blog post today in preview of a more in depth article on Sunday.

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