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LOS ANGELES (AP) - The California Transportation Department shielded from public view details of at least 290 contracts worth more than $13 million, though there is no record the agency was given authority to strike the information from state records, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The contracts — labeled "confidential" and in many cases awarded without competitive bidding — went out between 2002 and 2006 and ranged from $10,000 to more than $1 million. They authorized payments of up to $7,000 per day to experts in various fields for their testimony or legal opinions.
The Department of General Services, which has authority over a huge tracking system of state contracts, requires agencies to seek permission before masking information in the records as confidential.
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