Stanislaus County auditor says $60M state payment error was caught right away
Stanislaus County came out on the short end — to say the least — when the State Controller’s Office mistakenly disbursed millions of dollars to counties for K-12 schools.
While some counties received more than they should have, Stanislaus was shorted $62.8 million. Eleven counties were affected by the glitch reported in The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday, and at least one county still was rectifying the error this week.
A whopping payment of $105.9 million intended for Stanislaus was sent in late January to Sutter County. That county should have received $25.8 million for schools.
A Stanislaus County official said Wednesday the $60 million mistake was caught right away by this county and the discrepancy was fixed Jan. 30.
Sutter County supervisors voted reluctantly Tuesday to return a $80 million overpayment to the state, which raised a question about interest on that amount earned over two months.
In late January, the State Controller’s Office accidentally sent the payment for Sonoma County to Stanislaus. Sonoma is a smaller county and Stanislaus received $43.1 million, or about 60% less than it expected.
The payments sent out to counties in January are called “principal apportionment payments for schools.”
Stanislaus County Auditor-Controller Mandip Dhillon said Wednesday the county Treasurer-Tax Collector’s office noticed it received far less than the correct amount Jan. 28. The county office contacted the State Controller’s Office that same day. Stanislaus received the full amount of $106 million by Jan. 30, Dhillon said.
“To their credit, the state fixed it,” Dhillon said.
Dhillon said the education funds are sent to the county monthly to cover school payrolls and other operational costs. The funds coming from the state general fund are passed through to the County Office of Education.
Dhillon said the State Controller’s Office provides a schedule before each monthly disbursement that shows the amount for each county. The county treasurer’s office can check the schedule to make sure the correct amount is sent.
“That is why it was caught right away,” Dhillon said. “Our people were paying attention.”
Dhillon said the county of 557,000 residents often receives amounts of more than $90 million for K-12 schools and some months it is over $100 million.
The erroneous payments in January were attributed to a spreadsheet error that caused counties in alphabetical order to receive the payment intended for the county before it on the list.
“You would think they would have a procedure in place to double-check that,” Dhillon said.
This story was originally published March 11, 2026 at 5:55 PM.
