CA created an agency to stop conservatorship abuses. It has 1 employee

Last month, CalMatters exposed how a fiduciary in Ventura County directed $2.7 million from her elderly clients to her husband’s health care company. A judge has already begun unwinding the conflicts. 

Now, investigative reporter Byrhonda Lyons is back with her second story in the series, this time digging deep into the state agency that’s supposed to oversee licensed fiduciaries who can exert so much control over people’s finances and lives. 

Take Donna Bogdanovich. 

The Professional Fiduciaries Bureau started getting complaints about her just months after it awarded her a license in 2011. 

The bureau fined her multiple times for not providing records during an investigation and operating with an expired license. Someone warned the bureau that Bogdanovich was transferring money between client accounts.

But she continued to have a license, and was able to oversee the finances of people like Vinyasi. 

He turned to the bureau when Bognodavich stopped paying the bills. The bureau didn’t take action at the time, and the consequences piled up. His car broke down. He went without food. 

Police eventually arrested Bogdonavich on charges of stealing $2.5 million of her clients’ funds. By that time, Vinyasi was homeless. 

Byrhonda’s new reporting shows how the agency has failed to fulfill its promise to protect Californians and uphold ethical standards. 

• Vinyasi: “Why put up a false front that they’re there to serve a purpose? They don’t serve any purpose. Even if you couldn’t fix the problems, at least erase the lie that they’re there to do something, because they don’t do anything.”

More of Byrhonda’s findings include:

• The bureau has stopped neither the conflicts prohibited by its own code of conduct nor outrageous behavior by California fiduciaries.
• The information it maintains on fiduciaries is often kept secret or is sometimes inaccurate.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t filled the bureau’s open chief position for a year and a half. In fact, it has just one employee at the moment.

Help us continue reporting: Let us know if you have had an experience with a fiduciary or conservator you would like to share. 

Though the proposed tax on California billionaires is popular among voters, some of the state’s prominent progressive figures who have reservations about the idea remain mum about their stances.

As CalMatters’ Maya C. Miller explains, though the idea of a one-time tax to offset federal funding cuts to health care seems like a no-brainer for those who want to tax the rich, progressive lawmakers and organizations such as San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, the California Labor Federation and the Working Families Party, have declined taking a position on the initiative.

One labor-aligned state legislator, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that they and other Democrats have doubts that the tax could withstand legal challenges. They also worry that billionaires would ultimately use accounting tricks to avoid paying the tax anyway.

Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward of San Diego, a member of the Legislative Progressive Caucus and the only lawmaker who openly expressed criticisms about the proposal to CalMatters, also took issue with how the tax would boost the state’s health care sector instead of its overall revenues.

Read more.

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang:

The California Supreme Court has ordered a pause of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigation and recount of ballots cast in the November 2025 special election as multiple lawsuits challenging the effort make their way through the courts. Bianco, a Republican and a leading candidate for governor, earlier this year seized more than 1,400 boxes of ballots and other materials from local elections officials as part of the investigation, alarming voting rights advocates. 

The order came in response to one of Attorney General Rob Bonta’s court filings seeking to halt the investigation. Bonta, a Democrat running for reelection this year, is also seeking to stop Bianco’s effort in Riverside County court. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has filed a similar, separate suit on behalf of voting rights advocates. Bianco last week said he had put the investigation on hold amid legal challenges. 

Also on Wednesday, a Riverside County judge unsealed the three search warrants Bianco obtained from a different county judge — with whom Bianco has political ties — that allowed him to seize the ballots. A coalition of media outlets, including CalMatters, had asked to unseal documents, which include the sworn statements Bianco’s deputies made to the judge to justify their investigation. 

The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office said it will not file charges against Alfred Aldrete, a Clovis resident who in February helped escort high school students on a walkout protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Earlier on Tuesday, local police charged Aldrete with one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Read more from CalMatters’ Nigel Duara.