(BusinessWeeek) Law enforcement officials are investigating possible crimes in San Bernardino’s city government, which almost drained special funds to prop up its budget.
The near-bankrupt state of the community of 209,000 east of Los Angeles came to light when a new finance director discovered that previous officials shifted money for workers-compensation and liability insurance to the general fund, said Andrea Travis- Miller, interim city manager.
“The city has relied on a whole variety of one-time measures to balance its budget,” Travis-Miller, who began her job in May, said yesterday. “There have been transfers to the general fund with the expectation that they would be repaid. That became difficult.”