By Nick Janes, May 29, 2014, Sacramento.cbslocal.com

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The state office in charge of keeping track of California taxpayers’ money made tens of billions of accounting mistakes.

CBS13 added it up and came up with a big number: $31.65 billion in errors. That’s more than the gross domestic product of Iceland and Jamaica combined.

Controller John Chiang’s office is the state’s financial watchdog, but an audit by the Bureau of State Audits claims the office’s accounting is off by billions of dollars.

The audit revealed:

• $7.7 billion – Understated federal trust fund revenues and expenditures
• $653 million – Overstated general fund assets and revenues
• $8 billion – Overstated California State University’s bond debt
• $9.1 billion – Reporting error that understated a public building construction fund

Also there was a deferred tax-revenue figure posted as $6.2 billion when it was actually $6.2 million.

All told, that’s more than $31 billion in mistakes.

Sacramento State accounting professor John Corless agrees with auditors saying those glaring mistakes should have been caught by somebody.

“Someone’s not using their equipment right, and they’re not using their heads,” he said.

Republican consultant Mitch Zak is calling for an investigation.