351 California Is Owed Millions of Dollars by State Employees By JENNIFER MEDINA

LOS ANGELES —

 When the State of California began handing out i.o.u.’s in 2009 because of a cash shortage, taxpayers were predictably aghast. But few knew at the time that even as pay-you-later notes kept going out, state agencies were also doling out millions of dollars in interest-free loans in the form of salary and travel advances to employees without collecting repayment.

Now, with the state budget facing a devastating $26.5 billion deficit, Gov. Jerry Brown is demanding that agencies immediately stop the practice and determine how much money employees with unpaid loans owe the state.

The state controller began investigating the practice two years ago and has issued several audits about the practice. In 2009, for example, an audit found that 11 agencies had more than $13 million in outstanding loans. In many cases, the agencies had not collected on the loans at all.

“The situation reinforces the worst stereotype of ineffective and inefficient government,” Mr. Brown said in a statement with the executive order issued Wednesday. He said he was ordering all state agencies to “immediately investigate the backlog of uncollected debts and find every penny owed to taxpayers.”

The executive order comes as Mr. Brown is struggling to get his own budget approved by the Legislature. He has repeatedly said that he wants to go to the voters to have tax extensions approved, but so far has been unable to secure needed support from a handful of Republicans.

At the same time, Mr. Brown remains eager to show that he is aggressively cutting down on waste. So far this year, he has issued executive orders cutting the state’s vehicle fleet and state employee cellphones as well as banning the dispersal of promotional items like key chains.

Under state law, employees are able to receive hardship advances from their paychecks and for work travel from an agency’s discretionary fund. But many agencies had not been following state regulations by taking the money out of the employees’ paychecks. After three years, the money cannot be collected without an employee’s consent.

“The state’s poor debt collection and accounting practices are fleecing public coffers at a time when vital public programs are being decimated by unprecedented budget cuts,” the state controller, John Chiang, said in a statement Wednesday.

Administration officials expect that there are millions more dollars in unpaid loans that have not been accounted for. So far, the state does not know how much of the money is from salary advances that should have been repaid and how much is travel expenses that were not accounted for.

Other money owed to the state has also gone unpaid. For example, in an audit of the California Highway Patrol, state officials found that the agency had not collected money from people who were convicted of drunken driving and obligated to repay the state for the investigation.

Each of the audited agencies has now promised to stiffen its accounting procedures and turn over any delinquent accounts to the controller’s office so that the money can be collected and repaid to the state’s general fund.