SANDAG has less money than it expected, and the transportation projects it’s built are more expensive than it had hoped. Now, an audit says the agency needs to start making tough decisions.
Category: SANDAG Investigation
In 2016, Voice of San Diego revealed that the San Diego Association of Governments had knowingly misled the public about its revenues and understated its costs to conceal a growing shortfall for all the transportation projects it had promised to voters as part of a sales tax hike to fund infrastructure projects. SANDAG also misled the public about how much a new sales tax hike it was boosting would bring in – and didn’t disclose that the new money would have been used to plug the revenue hole, not pay for shiny new projects. SANDAG commissioned an independent investigation that confirmed these findings, and found the agency had intentionally concealed documents to avoid inquiries from VOSD. The agency director resigned in disgrace following the investigation, and the state Legislature passed a law overhauling the agency.
