Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown was confiscating state-issued cellphones and cars. This year, he's finding grout pumps and chairs.
Such is his attention to budget dust in austere times.
In a memorandum last week, Brown's executive secretaries, Jim Humes and Nancy McFadden, ordered agency secretaries to review their property-accounting procedures.
"We recognize that the state has over 190,000 employees, and that property can be occasionally lost or misplaced in the regular course of business," their memo said.
"However," it added, "every state employee must use state property responsibly, and departments must have effective internal controls."
The agencies are to report their findings within six months.
Brown's office provided some examples of state-owned items later found after being reported lost, stolen or destroyed:
• One $415,000 X-ray machine and four $26,000 dental chairs at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
• A surveillance system erroneously listed as "missing" at a Department of Motor Vehicles field office, and a $26,000 grout pump reported stolen, but later found.
Brown is trying to improve documentation and tighten controls, spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford said.
>BY THE NUMBERS
When it comes to financial security, Californians resemble residents of Southern and Rust Belt states, says Washington-based Corporation for Enterprise Development. California was ranked 39th among the states and the District of Columbia, largely because of its low rankings on credit card debt, loan delinquency and bankruptcy. Vermont came in first, Georgia dead last.
>WORTH REPEATING
"I've been found out. I was secretly backing a Super PAC in the GOP primary."
LT. GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM, via Twitter, noting that a New York Times report listed him as giving $500 of the more than $1 million that comedian Stephen Colbert's presidential bid had raised as of Tuesday morning
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