{"id":455527,"date":"2026-09-06T17:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/455527\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T17:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:02:09","slug":"endorsement-herb-morgan-for-state-controller-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/455527\/","title":{"rendered":"Endorsement: Herb Morgan for state controller \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

California is a financial mess. In December, the state auditor released<\/a> his \u201cUpdated Assessment of Issues and Agencies That Pose a High Risk to the State,\u201d reporting that \u201cLate Financial Reporting Remains a High-Risk Issue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The people who are supposed to be watching the risks are themselves a risk. \u201cFinancial Reporting\u201d has been on the high-risk list since 2020.<\/p>\n

State Controller Malia Cohen, seeking a second term in the office to which she was elected in 2022, told us that there has been \u201csignificant progress\u201d to improve reporting and to file the state\u2019s chronically late Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports closer to their deadlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned it takes a long time to get things done,\u201d she told our editorial board, explaining that people \u201cblow through deadlines\u201d and departments don\u2019t always have employees with the right skill sets to do the work. She similarly expressed concern about inadequate internal controls across state government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But asked how to fix these problems, whether it would require legislation or money, or if it was institutional inertia, Cohen basically said she didn\u2019t know.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The controller is the state\u2019s chief fiscal officer, accountant and bookkeeper, and sits on dozens of boards including those of California\u2019s largest employee pension funds. It\u2019s a financial job. Malia Cohen, however, is not a financial professional. Her expertise is in politics. As the top official overseeing roughly 1,600 employees, she is heavily reliant on the judgment and performance of others.<\/p>\n

As an example of how that can go wrong, the state auditor found that the \u201ccontroller made material errors\u201d totaling $11 billion in the reconciliation of education funding in the fiscal year 2022-23 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, as well as $6.1 billion in \u201cmaterial errors\u201d the following year.<\/p>\n

In November, California voters have a better option \u2014 a candidate with the relevant expertise and independence to cut through the inertia and restore accountability.<\/p>\n

Herb Morgan, who grew up in Westminster and Oceanside and lives in San Diego, spent 40 years working in finance. He founded an investment firm, grew it to manage $1.5 billion in assets and later sold it to a large Wall Street company, where he served as their chief investment officer for about a decade. He retired earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Morgan also has some experience with the challenges of public finance, having served on the board of the San Diego City Employees\u2019 Retirement System. He was appointed by Mayor Jerry Sanders in 2009 to help get the fund back on track after serious problems in the early 2000s. Morgan was twice elected board chair by his fellow trustees.<\/p>\n

As a candidate for controller, Morgan has demonstrated that he can provide what he calls \u201cradical transparency,\u201d creating a website<\/a> that pulls California\u2019s current spending data out of the balky FI$Cal financial system and makes it accessible to the public.<\/p>\n

Morgan also created a campaign finance tracker<\/a> that shows every donation to his campaign, with verified transactions \u201crecorded on the blockchain for immutable transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reminder that technology has provided tools for financial oversight that were not available even ten years ago. Much can be done to bring transparency and accountability to California\u2019s finances, if the official in charge is knowledgeable and experienced. Herb Morgan is both.<\/p>\n

Morgan told the editorial board the controller has the authority to mandate accounting methodology and reporting techniques. He said he could use the powers of the office to audit any entity that touches state funds. Homelessness spending and high-speed rail are two obvious candidates for an auditor\u2019s scrutiny.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s annual budget has soared above $300 billion. The Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office has warned of structural deficits as spending growth outpaces revenue growth. State taxes are among the highest in the nation, waste and fraud are rampant, and Sacramento\u2019s answer has been to tap the rainy day reserves and use \u201cbudget borrowing\u201d to kick the can down the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If any state ever needed a financial watchdog, it\u2019s this one.<\/p>\n

Herb Morgan is a rare candidate with experience and ideas perfectly matched to the office he\u2019s seeking, at a time when California is especially in need of his skills. He deserves your vote and we endorse him for controller.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California is a financial mess. In December, the state auditor released his \u201cUpdated Assessment of Issues and Agencies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[129555,7,9,8,1965,9198,975],"class_list":["post-455527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-2026-state-endorsements","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-editorials","tag-endorsements","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}