Officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department used taxpayer-funded aircraft for unsanctioned personal trips, according to a county audit released Thursday.
One of the trips was given to a commander’s daughter who got a sheriff’s helicopter lift to a retirement party, according to the Los Angeles Times. She was picked up in Calabasas and taken to a party in East Los Angeles.
“The daughter had allegedly been delayed by highway traffic,” the audit said.
Another official opted against a commercial flight and instead traveled to Connecticut aboard a sheriff’s airplane, a $35,000 cost to the county.
Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, disregarded the audit’s findings.
“They’re always going to find little things that are questionable,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “The sheriff does not accept any questionable uses of county items and is prepared to correct anything that needs correcting.”
The City of Malibu pays $6.3 million annually for Sheriff’s services.