Sanders Reveals $2 Million Spent Inappropriately

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 23, 2007 at 11:41 AM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders announced today that internal accounting checks reveals the city misallocated $2 million. Sanders says the money will be refunded. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders announced today that internal accounting checks reveals the city misallocated $2 million. Sanders says the money will be refunded. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

This is not the first revelation that the city has spent money earmarked for one thing on something else. In this case services like collecting refuse from Mission Bay Park were paid for entirely out of a Trash Pickup fund instead of by the Parks Department.

Become a KPBS sponsor

Mayor Sanders says the city continues to audit all departments to see that money isn’t being transferred inappropriately.

Sanders: I think this all goes back to the fact that there were more programs than revenues for quite some time and city managers were told to find the revenues and they did they became creative, and we want o make sure we stop it all now.

The mayor says the city cannot go back and refund money that was misappropriated as far back as 15 years ago. But he says an across- the- board audit should be complete this summer to root out what he called “inappropriate spending” in the future. Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

twitter

Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.