Governor Gavin Newsom railed against incompetence in Washington during his inaugural address, but he doesn’t have to look all the way across the country to find failure in government.

Just recently, the State Auditor reported that California’s new accounting system is so unreliable that large state agencies flat-out refuse to use it, increasing the risk of incomplete or inaccurate financial reports.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg:

·         A major accounting firm is filing paper tax returns because California’s online system is too hard to use.

·         A state prison is spending more than half a million dollars per year on bottled water because its “state of the art” water treatment plant won’t stop breaking.

·         The Secretary of State’s campaign finance database is nearly a year behind schedule, while costs have doubled.

·         The DMV issued millions of Real IDs that didn’t meet federal standards, then waited a month to tell anyone about the issue.

·         Workers at the DMV botched tens of thousands of voter registrations, and five months later, elections officials still can’t explain how bad the problem actually is.

·         High-Speed Rail. All of it.

There are serious competency issues in our own state government that deserve Gov. Newsom’s attention. Let’s hope he’s as committed to accountability here as he is to it in Washington.

— Assembly Republicans