Undercover journalist Nick Shirley just released a bombshell 40-minute video exposing over $170 million in fraud across California, including fake daycares and abandoned hospices where fraudsters are living in luxury with zero consequences. As he put it: “Minnesota was big, but California is even bigger.” The fraudsters have been defrauding hardworking taxpayers for years, enabled by weak oversight and bad policies.
This shocking new footage aligns with what our team uncovered months ago in California’s official 2024 Single Audit (issued December 2025).
Here’s what the state’s own auditors found regarding the very child care providers receiving federal subsidies:
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The state had no procedures in place to ensure that these providers met basic federal health and safety requirements.
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Those requirements cover critical protections like disease prevention, safe sleep practices, emergency preparedness, pediatric first aid, and CPR.
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Auditors classified this as a material weakness in internal control over compliance, a serious oversight gap that could put children at direct risk of abuse and neglect (if any children exist at all).
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And yes, you, the taxpayer, are paying the tab.
Nick Shirley’s on-the-ground investigation is now showing the real-world fallout of exactly these systemic failures we’ve been reporting on since January. The audit laid out the paper trail of incompetence; his video captures the human cost.
Transparency and accountability matter; this latest exposé proves why. Federal funding freezes, investigations, and growing public outrage are finally forcing the issue into the spotlight, but real reform only happens when taxpayers demand it.
We’ll continue tracking the Single Audit stories for each state. So far, besides California, we have results for:
And soon we will be publishing the results for:
- Pennsylvania
- Delaware
- Virgin Islands
- Louisiana
- Oregon
- Texas
- Florida
- Indiana