California Controller Malia Cohen Faces Scrutiny Over Unfulfilled Audit Pledges and Agency Conflicts

Malia Cohen entered California’s controller office in 2023 promising rigorous oversight of the state’s most troubled agencies. Nearly four years later, the Democrat has not delivered the audits she campaigned on, while her office has become embroiled in jurisdictional disputes with other state watchdogs and an undercover recording controversy that exposed internal resource constraints.

During her 2022 campaign, Cohen pledged to audit homelessness spending, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Employment Development Department. None of those reviews materialized. Her office attributes the abandoned DMV and EDD audits to a desire to avoid duplicating work already underway by other state entities. The homelessness audits stalled after the governor’s office denied a funding request from Cohen’s team, though her office later clarified that the rejected proposal sought money for high-risk audit investments generally rather than targeting homelessness specifically.

The controller serves as California’s chief fiscal officer, overseeing more than $300 billion in annual state disbursements and managing payroll for over 250,000 state employees. Unlike the California State Auditor, who reports directly to the Legislature and conducts performance audits across all government branches, the controller’s audit authority is largely confined to internal financial controls and specific statutory mandates. That structural distinction limits the office’s ability to unilaterally launch broad programmatic investigations without legislative or executive funding support.

Resource limitations became a public flashpoint this year when O’Keefe Media Group, a conservative activist organization known for deceptive sting operations, released a secret recording of Cohen’s press officer. A woman posing as a romantic date captured the employee acknowledging that state budget cuts had gutted the office’s auditing team, leaving it without the capacity to initiate proactive investigations. Cohen dismissed the recording as illegal and refused to comment further. The press officer did not respond to media inquiries.

O’Keefe Media Group has employed similar tactics nationwide for over a decade, frequently targeting Democratic officials and progressive organizations. California is a two-party consent state under Penal Code 632, meaning secretly recording a confidential conversation without all participants’ permission can constitute a criminal offense, though enforcement typically requires a formal complaint from the recorded party.

Beyond the unfulfilled campaign pledges, Cohen’s tenure has been defined by friction over the state’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. The document, compiled by the controller’s office, provides credit rating agencies with the data needed to assess California’s fiscal health and borrowing costs. For years, the report has been published months past its legal deadline. Cohen has consistently blamed other state departments for failing to submit their financial data on time, arguing that the controller cannot finalize a statewide ledger until individual agencies deliver their numbers.

That explanation prompted the California State Auditor to launch an independent review into why the report remains chronically late. The inquiry nearly triggered a legal confrontation between the two oversight bodies. In a 2025 letter, the auditor accused Cohen’s office of spending more than a year actively resisting the independent examination. Cohen’s team disputes that characterization and maintains the current reporting cycle was completed closer to the statutory deadline than in previous years.

The controller’s office continues to process the state’s daily financial operations while navigating a reduced audit workforce heading into the final year of Cohen’s first term.