California Needs a Controller Who Puts Classrooms and Cops Before Bureaucracy

California’s budget is broken. We spend more, yet too often fail to deliver the results taxpayers expect. Classrooms struggle, public safety remains under pressure, and bureaucracy continues to grow.

After nearly forty years in finance, managing billions of dollars and building organizations where accountability and results mattered every day, I’ve learned a simple truth: budgets reflect priorities. If leaders fund the wrong things first, the people who depend on government services pay the price.

California doesn’t need another inexperienced political hack to shuffle paper and protect the status quo. It needs a State Controller with the financial experience to understand where the money goes—and the determination to challenge entrenched systems, demand accountability, and insist that government justify every dollar it spends.

The State Controller’s office was not created to be a passive scorekeeper. The California Constitution charges the Controller with superintending the fiscal concerns of the state. The Government Code gives the office broad authority over accounting systems, financial reporting, audits, and uniform accounting procedures.

Those powers have never been fully exercised. Accounting and budgeting are inseparable. The way government classifies, measures, and reports spending shapes how taxpayers and policymakers understand priorities.

As Controller, I will use every constitutional and statutory authority of the office to bring accountability to California’s finances. I will require transparent financial reporting that clearly shows where money is going, what results are being achieved, and whether frontline services are being prioritized over administrative growth.

Bottom-Up Budgeting: Classrooms Before Bureaucracy

California should start budgeting where government actually delivers services: the classroom, the patrol car, the fire engine, and the public counter.

In education, teachers and principals know what students need. Funding decisions should begin with the essentials: qualified teachers, instructional materials, safe learning environments, and the resources necessary for students to succeed. Only after those priorities are met should government expand administrative layers or lower-priority programs.

California spends enormous sums on education, yet our students continue to struggle in foundational areas like reading. More money alone is not the solution. Better priorities, transparency, and accountability are.

Public Safety: Patrol Cars Before Politics

The same principle applies to law enforcement and emergency services.

Budgets should begin with the people protecting our communities: officers, deputies, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, equipment, training, and response capabilities.

Communities do not measure government success by the size of its bureaucracy. They measure it by whether help arrives when they need it.

A Controller Who Will Challenge the Status Quo

For too long, California’s budgeting process has started at the top—with bureaucracies protecting their own priorities—and worked downward.

It should be the opposite.

Government should start with the essential services Californians rely on every day. Fund the must-haves first. Measure results. Eliminate waste. Require every dollar to justify itself.

That is Radical Transparency in action—not simply showing taxpayers where money went after it was spent, but changing how government makes spending decisions in the first place.

Nearly forty years in finance taught me that successful organizations focus resources on their core mission. California government should do the same.

As State Controller, I will bring the financial experience, independence, and determination needed to make government work better for the people who pay for it.

California’s future is worth fighting for. It is time to stop funding failure and start building government from the bottom up—where it matters most.