California residents are generous, but they are not naïve.
They hear calls for higher taxes while reading about hospice fraud, Medi-Cal schemes, addiction treatment profiteering, and public contracts routed through insiders. Before the government asks taxpayers for more it must prove it can protect their money.
We write from different roles with the same obligation. One of us approves funding as an Orange County supervisor. One serves as the elected auditor-controller responsible for financial accountability. We both serve on the county’s Audit and Investment Oversight Committees.
Safety net programs feed seniors, treat addiction, and serve vulnerable residents. Fraud destroys those systems, and takes funds away from public safety, prosecuting criminals and other important county functions.
The County of Orange is doing its part with your taxpayer dollars. Since 2024 we’ve tightened contracts, demanded documentation, strengthened controls, and followed the money. We changed how we assess risk so public dollars face scrutiny before problems grow. Our system of care suffers when fraudsters exploit residents or waste money.
Orange County learned what happens when oversight is weakened.
In 2018, former Auditor Controller Eric Woolery warned that weakening independent oversight would hurt the County. Andrew Do, then Board Chair, led the effort to downsize the role of the Auditor Controller and Performance Auditor.
Those efforts were designed to weaken oversight and hide risk.
In 2023, we raised questions about auditing at the Orange County Transportation Authority when they considered changes that would limit future audits of transportation funding by more than half a billion dollars. Do strongly opposed our efforts. Instead, Do responded by proposing an audit of the Auditor Controller’s office and questioned staffing levels during county budget deliberations. That was retaliation dressed up as accountability. It sent a warning to anyone asking hard questions about public money. Audits do not waste taxpayer money. Audits protect taxpayer money.
Federal investigators exposed the results of insufficient oversight. Andrew Do orchestrated the theft of millions in COVID relief funds meant to feed vulnerable seniors and residents with disabilities. He and his family benefited, taxpayers were left with the loss, and the County of Orange is entitled to more than $8.8 million in restitution. Do is serving five years in federal prison.
Do exploited the gaps he created by steering taxpayer dollars through a nonprofit tied to his criminal enterprise. Viet America Society was formed in 2020 and began receiving county funds that same year. Before this scandal, subcontractor compliance and monitoring was not a core component of county risk assessment. That is no longer the case. Newly formed organizations and subcontractor arrangements now require real scrutiny before public dollars are allocated.
In 2025 the county began an unprecedented forensic audit of 2,552 contracts totaling $4.3 billion. Phase One reviewed 145 high risk contracts totaling more than $486 million and uncovered additional concerns tied to Do’s conduct and contracting practices. The county is moving into the next phase.
This is a shift toward risk-based oversight. With better data and stronger risk scoring, audits can focus on areas of greatest exposure within contracts, subcontracts, emergency spending, no-bid contracts, newly formed organizations, and weak performance requirements involving fraud, waste, or abuse.
Fiscal discipline protects trust. The County of Orange holds a AAA issuer default ratings from Fitch and Standard and Poor’s. The County Treasury Pool holds Fitch’s highest fund credit quality and market risk sensitivity ratings, AAAf and S1. Both ratings were reaffirmed in April. They reflect strong reserves, low debt, disciplined budgeting, conservative investment policies, and real oversight.
Sacramento should follow this roadmap.
California must strengthen fraud prevention in state-funded programs by improving processes and modernizing systems. They should demand required services are performed and strict documentation before payment, improve real time data review, strengthen provider screening, support county enforcement, and make performance easier to track.
Fraud erodes public trust, hurts vulnerable residents that are in need, and pushes honest providers out of the system.
Before government asks residents to sacrifice more, it should ask where it wastes money, misses fraud, and tolerates inefficiency.
A private business cannot survive by ignoring waste and asking customers to pay more. Government should not either.
California can protect services and taxpayers at the same time. Follow the money. Fund oversight. Expose risk early. Reform systems before scandals force reform.
Katrina Foley is the Vice Chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and Andrew Hamilton is the independently elected Orange County Auditor-Controller