Your guide to the California controller race: Incumbent Cohen vs. challenger Morgan
As a candidate in 2022, Cohen said she’d conduct audits of homeless spending, the Department of Motor Vehicles and Employment Development Department if elected. However, her office didn’t do audits of homeless spending, a spokesperson said.
Cohen said her office sought funding from the governor and the state to conduct homeless audits but was denied. Her office clarified the request was for money for high-risk audit investments but didn’t specifically mention homelessness.
Cohen also acknowledged that she didn’t conduct reviews of the DMV and EDD, because, she said, other agencies were doing those audits and she didn’t want to duplicate their efforts.
After Cohen’s election, her office found itself in a public dispute over the state’s annual comprehensive financial report, a summary of California’s spending.
The report, published each year by the controller’s office, is used by credit agencies to monitor the state’s fiscal health and for years has been published months after it is due. Cohen blames other departments’ delays in turning over data as part of the reason for its chronic lateness.
The state auditor, a separate agency that reports to the state Legislature, launched its own audit about the timeliness of the report. In a 2025 letter, the auditor accused the controller’s office of spending more than a year “resisting an independent review” of the delayed report, which almost led to a legal showdown between the agencies.
Cohen, in an interview this year, said she succeeded in getting the report published closer to its due date. Her office also disputes the state auditor’s version of events.
Also this year, Cohen’s press officer secretly was recorded by a woman who pretended to be on a date with him. In the recording, the officer is heard saying that the office’s auditing team was cut by the state and that the office doesn’t have the resources to proactively perform audits. The recording was procured by conservative activist group O’Keefe Media.
Cohen called the recording illegal and declined to comment. The officer didn’t respond to The Times’ request for comment.