In a sprawling report critical of how Mendocino County manages its finances, the California State Auditor accuses District Attorney David Eyster of wrongly using public funds to host annual steakhouse dinners.
It specifically cited DA Eyster’s use earlier this year of $3,600 in drug asset forfeiture funds to pay room space and dinner for staff and their guests, which he described as “continuing legal education and team building business meeting.” State Auditors found that in fact it was a “gift of public funds.”
Eyster has been holding the controversial annual dinners for years, racking up expenses totaling thousands of dollars since taking office in 2011. He has repeatedly shrugged off criticism and ignored questioning by local County Auditor Chamise Cubbison. Her questions in fact triggered a bitter feud between the two independently elected county officials and led the DA to make a failed effort earlier this year to criminally prosecute Cubbison for unrelated pay issues within her office. The felony case was tossed by Judge Ann Moorman at the preliminary hearing, and Cubbison returned to office.
On Thursday Cubbison supporters noted the irony of state auditors accusing Eyster of gift of public funds, the same allegation for which he attempted to criminally prosecute her.
As it is, local taxpayers so far have paid in excess of $400,000 in outside legal fees to pay for an outside prosecutor hired by Eyster to attempt to try Cubbison on a felony criminal charge, and defend the county in a civil lawsuit subsequently filed by Cubbison seeking damages and compensation for loss of salary and benefits during the 18-month-long suspension ordered by the county Board of Supervisors. The lawsuit is still pending and is likely to cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
Conclusions of the exhaustive special state review, authorized by the Legislature at a cost of $800,000, were released Thursday along with county responses and the State Auditor’s responses to those responses.
The scope of the 97-page state report is sweeping, focusing on the county’s declining financial condition and the need for corrective action. It looked at a variety of issues including an election snafu and questionable sole-source agreements on splitting contracts with outside vendors.
State auditors concluded the county’s current procurement and financial reporting practices “leave it vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse of public funds.”
It reviewed thirty expenditures across three county departments and found problems with documentation or justification in half of them.
“For example, staff purchased items (a $1,000 wide screen television for the DA’s office) without documenting the reasons why and did not reconcile advance payments to staff for travel with the actual costs of those trips,” according to the state report.
Besides DA Eyster’s “gift of public funds” by providing annual dinners for staff and their guests, the state report also focused on how the DA and the local Sheriff’s Office spend asset forfeiture funds, money or property seized during law enforcement criminal investigators.
State auditors concluded that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors or the executive office have not “sufficiently overseen the use of the asset forfeiture funds spent by the Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office.”
State auditors said the county management must beef up its oversight efforts.
“We recommend that the county establish greater oversight over spending and create accountability for the use of asset forfeiture funds by having offices or departments that spend those funds report to the board annually about their use,” the state urged.
“As a result, we found that these offices were making donations of these funds without adequate safeguards against improper spending,” according to state auditors.
They cited a Sheriff’s Office donation to a “religiously affiliated school that violates state and federal constitutional provisions.”
State auditors said the DA’s Office in February of this year made a gift of public funds when it used asset forfeiture money to cover $3,600 on an end-of-year gathering and dinner for its staff and guests. The steakhouse dinners have been a regular practice of Eyster since he took office in 2011.
Eyster did not respond Thursday to requests for comments on the state Auditor’s findings.
However, in an earlier response to state auditors, the DA asserted in a concluding statement that “no improper payroll practices, financial irregularities or personal enrichment by District Attorney staff were uncovered, and all transactions were supported by at least some degree of documentation.”
In rebuttal, state auditors replied, “to provide clarity and perspective.”
“The District Attorney’s Office asserts that its use of asset forfeiture funding has been lawful. However, as our report notes on pages 30 and 31, the office’s use of asset forfeiture funding has violated state and federal constitutional prohibitions on direct funding for religiously affiliated schools, as well as the California Constitution’s prohibition on gifts of public funds.”
State auditors also said the DA’s Office “has not accurately summarized our findings regarding the presence of waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement with respect to the office’s expenditures.”
“We noted that some of the District Attorney’s Office documentation, such as undocumented justification for its purchase of a television,” a wide screen, $1,000 version for the DA’s conference room.
“These issues place Mendocino and the District Attorney’s Office at greater risk for waste, fraud and abuse,” state auditors concluded.
Sheriff Matt Kendall readily discussed the state's findings on Thursday, especially as they related to asset forfeiture funding.
“All in all, I think the recommendations are valid, and we will implement changes as recommended,” said Kendall.
Kendall said in 2024 federal guidelines surrounding asset forfeiture funds and how they are spent by local law enforcement were changed.
“Many of the areas brought forward in the audit are no longer of concern,” said Kendall.
The state report noted a $5,000 Sheriff contribution to St. Mary’s School for an athletic-related program and violated a doctrine of separation of church and state.
Kendall said the state, however, “found no pattern of donations to religious organizations and noted I have donated funding on several occasions for sober graduations, and various equipment drives that schools have had.”
Cubbison declined to comment Thursday on the state's findings.
Cubbison, however, in a letter to the state, said her office “accepts the California State Auditor’s recommendation.”
“We would like to thank the audit team for their professionalism, thorough review, and willingness to discuss their observations and recommendations with our team,” wrote Cubbison.
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