Bee reporters answer questions about area crime news, trends and other issues.
QUESTION: A while back, an employee for the California Department of Social Services was being investigated by the CHP for potentially funneling printing contracts to her sister. The employee's name was Christie Kaiser. There were several write-ups in The Bee, then nothing after that. What was the outcome?
Submitted by: AppleH, Sacramento
ANSWER: According to the California Fair Political Practices Commission's online records, Christie Kaiser was fined $400 in April 2010 for failing to disclose her husband's employer as a source of income on annual statements of economic interest.
Kaiser was a supervisor for the Department of Social Services records and forms management unit during a period when two companies owned by her sister -- and which also employed Kaiser's husband -- received 49 contracts worth more than $200,000 from the department, according to stories in The Bee. The contracts involved printing business cards, posters, pamphlets and other items. All but six of the deals, which began in 2004 and continued until January 2008 were approved without public calls for competitive bidding.
Kaiser was subsequently moved to another job "to sever her relationship" with the companies, a department spokeswoman told The Bee in 2008.
A team of state Department of Finance auditors concluded in a special review that the Department of Social Services had too few internal controls over how its officials awarded printing contracts.
The FPPC fined Kaiser after determining that she failed to disclose her husband's employer as a source of income on annual statements of economic interest for the reporting periods of Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2005, and Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2006.
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