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Bonus For Director Forced To Resign
Katy Grimes: Imagine what your boss would do if you misplaced millions of dollars and failed to keep accurate financial records. Your boss probably wouldn’t hand you a bonus check for $250,000. Yet that’s precisely what happened to Evelyn Martinez, the former director of First 5 LA, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report. Martinez was forced to resign last month by the First 5 Board of Directors after an audit uncovered gross mismanagement within the children’s services agency. But in a letter to the board, Martinez said she was “entitled to a lump sum payment equal to 12 months of salary and health benefits and her unused vacation.” Martinez, who earned more than $240,000 annually, also said she should receive an additional month of pay and health benefit costs because she was not given a 30-day written notice,” the Los Angeles Times reported. While those conditions were included in her contract, she was to receive them only if she was fired without cause. She was not eligible for severance pay if she resigned or was fired for cause, according to the contract, the Times reported. Knowing this, the First 5 Board should have fired her for cause, removed all questions surrounding her termination, and saved taxpayers a a great deal of money. Instead, it appears that they caved in. Among the findings of the audit were that First 5 LA had a surplus of “hundreds of millions of dollars that had not been applied to any educational programs” and First 5 staffers failed to keep “enough documentation to show that competitive bidding took place,” according to the Times. Despite the gross mismanagement, Martinez, who earned $240,000 annually, will receive a full year’s severance plus health benefits. A Similar Program Format The First 5 program, which Martinez administered in Los Angeles, bears a striking resemblance to one proposed by a ballot measure scheduled for the June election. The so-called California Cancer Research Act seeks to build a First 5 like bureaucracy run by political appointees that would oversee the proceeds of nearly $1 billion in additional taxes. This includes $16 million per year for bureaucrat salaries that continues year after year regardless of whether California can afford it or not. Martinez and the First 5 bureaucracy is a perfect example of how voters were snookered into growing government under the auspices of a health program. While there are a myriad of ideas about how to fix California’s broken fiscal situation, creating a brand new bureaucracy with hundreds of new staffers that can only be fired at great expense to the taxpayer, doesn’t rank among the most intelligent or prudent. While Californians deserve better than this kind of state government fraud, voters need to wake up and put an end to this kind of abuse of power, and waste of precious tax dollars. The First 5 LA Board:
DEC. 1, 2011
Tags: abuse, California, California budget, fraud, government, government bureaucracy, jobs, Katy Grimes, Sacramento, tax increases, waste Comments(5) |
May 24, 2013
Yes, this is yet another garden variety government scam that is so prevalent in modern american society. Back in the 60′s or 70′s a story like this would be front page news and stay there. Heads would roll. Today it’s reported one day and forgotten the next. And then we turn our heads to the next scam in tomorrow’s news. This stuff is everywhere. Wall Street banksters committed financial fraud bilking investors and taxpayers out of $trillions$ (collectively)and the perpetrators not only sidestepped the justice system that had a legal obligation to prosecute such crimes, they got rewarded with bigger bonuses paid with taxpayer dollars and were allowed to siphon $billions$ with over $7 trillion in hidden government loans while publicly announcing to shareholders that their balance sheets were solid when in reality they were teetering on default.
Fraud and scams have become an accepted business model practice in America, as long as you are a member of the ‘big club’. If you happen to be an insider (the few) you can violate all customary ethical (and in some cases legal) business practices and still live large at the expense of the debt slaves (the many).
There comes a point when one becomes totally desensitized to these stories. But then I guess that was the objective of ‘the few’ from the start, wasn’t it?
This is what’s come to in Cawleefornia: corrupt, incompetent bureaucrats becoming multi-millionairs (certainly when you factor in their years of pay and benefits and their pensions).
WE TAXPAYERS ARE NOTHING BUT CASH COWS TO BE MILKED AND BLED WHITE BY THESE DISGUSTING CRIMINAL PARASITES!
Connect the Dots: First 5 is a $500 million tax per year DYSFUNCTIONAL waste of money.
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:
• Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy May 6, 2010 (http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2010/time-to-end-the-children-and-families-commissions-autonomy/#comment-13984
• [AUDIO] First 5 Consultant receives $200 per hour for listening to radio KFI (May 7, 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3-nP9Hxvjw&fe…!
• [VIDEO] $4 million is spent on a national cartoon show KCRA (11-18-08)
• $200K+ per year First 5 lobbyist Sherry Novick defends First 5 http://www.californiahealthline.org/Features/2009/Prop-1D-Called-Hobsons-Choice-for-Voters.aspx
• Grand Jury report details problems at First 5 Contra Costa http://www.halfwaytoconcord.com/grand-jury-first-five-commission/
• More observation on First 5 LA http://www.laobserved.com/intell/2011/10/health_agency_-_latest_black_e.php
• $200 Million of Calif. Taxpayer’s Money Spent With No Accountability http://www.chicagonow.com/publius-forum/2011/10/200-million-of-calif-taxpayers-money-spent-with-no-accountability/
• Rob Reiner’s Fraud Based “First 5″; Tens of Millions of $$ Not Accounted For in LA, http://capoliticalnews.com/2011/10/29/rob-reiners-fraud-based-first-5-tens-of-millions-of-not-accounted-for-in-la/
First, I have no agenda about Prop 8 itself personally, BUT, because people have raised the question as to why Rob Reiner (Meathead) would be interested in making a movie about Prop 8, here’s another view – it’s perhaps about continuing to try to buy political influence overall here in CA.
Rob Reiner is the progenitor of California’s First 5 Commission, a completely dysfunctional organization (see my Facebook notes for researched documentation – 25+ articles, 12+ resignations, and at least 2 grand jury investigations can’t be wrong – http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002221479892&sk=notes).
Rob Reiner was himself forced to resign from the CA First 5 Board after clear conflict of interest problems and misspending $20+ million.
So – what’s the connection? Kris Perry is the Executive Director of First 5 California. Kris Perry is also one of the 4 named complainants in the Prop 8 lawsuit.
Why was Gloria Molina the only member of the Board of Supervisors to vote against axing the Exec. Director Evelyn Martinez: because they are sisters-in-law!!