California cities back to corruption

Cal Watch: The practice is common, although hardly in violation of any rules. But across the state, groups that have received breaks are getting deals to do business, with taxpayers effectively signing two sets of checks to some of the largest, well-capitalized companies in the world.

Oracle received a contract in 2011 for project management software to monitor L.A. County’s $40 million transit and highway expansion project. Oracle has also received $7.5 million in tax breaks and subsidies in the state since 1996.

In the city of San Diego, subsidized vendors included Time Warner, which had a cable internet contract in 2014, as well as software maker Oracle and defense behemoth Northrop Grumman Systems, which had contracts in 2012.

Northrop Grumman has cleaned up there; the $593,388 in city contracts over the past three years came as the company has received $429 million in subsidies statewide.

CalWatchdog compared local government vendor data to the numbers gathered by the subsidy watchdog group Good Jobs First. By the group’s tally, state and local subsidies in California topped $2 billion in recent years, with information focused on the period since 2012 plus some awards back to the mid-‘90s.

The state subsidies list is dominated by heavyweights: Walt Disney, Comcast, Anschutz Company, Viacom, Time Warner, Virgin, Lockheed Martin, Samsung, Northrop Grumman and Oracle.