When an engineering firm won a $131 million contract to help design California's high-speed rail system, it promised that six key personnel positions would be based in Sacramento full time.
Records obtained by CBS California show the consultants in three of those six key positions never relocated to Sacramento. Instead, taxpayers paid to fly them into the office — one from Texas and two from Denver — in some cases, almost every week.
Records show the senior consultant was only in the office a few days a week, while his hourly billing rate rose nearly 23% under California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri.
Whistleblowers inside the authority say the absence of key decision-makers is stifling productivity, making it harder for state employees to get answers, hold meetings, and move the project forward.
These revelations come after nearly three decades and more than $15 billion spent on California's High-Speed Rail project, yet California still hasn't laid a mile of high-speed rail track. The project recently lost $4 billion in federal funding and could run out of money by the end of 2027, even as the authority paid four consulting contractors more than $250 million over two fiscal years, all four of which were examined in an inspector general investigation into wasteful and unallowable travel expenses.
This is the second installment of The Receipts, a CBS California investigative series examining consultant spending, oversight and influence over the state's multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project.
After the inspector general uncovered widespread failures in consultant travel oversight, whistleblowers provided CBS California with some of the receipts and other materials that were the focus of the investigation.
In Part 1, we revealed that highly paid consultants charged taxpayers for late-night and early morning rides back to their hotels from the CEO's home and nearby restaurants.
On October 9, the High-Speed Rail Authority's board held a special meeting just hours after CBS California published that story. Board members did not directly question CEO Ian Choudri about the inspector general's findings or CBS California's, and Choudri declined to answer our questions after the meeting. The board ultimately voted 7-2 to restrict his independent contracting authority, requiring advance approval from the authority's attorneys for contract decisions within his $25 million delegated authority.
As CBS California continues reviewing receipts and interviewing current and former high-speed rail employees, our findings raise new questions about consultant spending, influence, and oversight that the board will ultimately have to address.
With the project under mounting financial pressure, the consultants responsible for helping design it now face questions about whether they delivered what California is paying for.
Why is California paying consultants to fly to Sacramento when they were supposed to relocate there?
CBS California reviewed approximately 6,000 pages of records associated with the SYSTRA|TYPSA Joint Venture, including its contract, invoices, travel claims, airline receipts, staffing records and internal office photographs.
The joint venture is identified only as the "Track & Systems Design contractor" in the inspector general's report, but its office has since confirmed it is the contractor referenced.
The firm has a $131.2 million contract to design track and overhead electrical systems for California's high-speed rail project.
The inspector general found that the California High-Speed Rail Authority paid more than $76,000 for key personnel to travel from out of state between 2024 and 2026.
Receipts obtained exclusively by CBS California Investigates reveal more.
The firm's proposal said its key personnel were "100% committed to relocating to Sacramento."
Travel records between July 2024 and May 2025 document repeated flights involving three key positions.
The current digital manager is based in Denver, while the current design engineering manager travels from Austin, Texas. Both replaced employees originally named in the contract. Records indicate neither the original employees in those positions nor their replacements relocated to Sacramento.
One consultant. Twenty-five trips. More than $31,000.
Robert Kennah, SYSTRA's principal-in-charge, was one of the six original key consultants who signed an April 2024 letter committing to work full time in Sacramento.
Instead, records show Kennah has been flying in to work in the office two to five times a month.
CBS California identified 25 trips or travel claims between his Denver home and Sacramento from July 2024 through May 2025, with airfare, hotels and ground transportation billed to California taxpayers.
After the rail authority's contract manager reminded SYSTRA of its Sacramento staffing requirements in December 2024, the trips dropped to about once a month, but taxpayers continued paying for them through May 2025.
The inspector general found the same pattern. The contract manager told investigators that a senior consultant needed to work with a Denver-based team, but the watchdog questioned why taxpayers should cover travel costs driven by the firm's staffing arrangements.
The authority did not answer our specific questions.
Scheduled three days per week, billing for five
Whistleblowers provided photographs covering about nine months of a Sacramento office whiteboard labeled "Who is in the Office?" The initials RK indicate when Kennah was expected to be in.
Together, the photos and travel records detail a consistent three-day-per-week in-office pattern while billing for five days.
The whiteboard isn't a verified attendance record and doesn't establish where he worked or whether he billed improperly, but it raises questions about how the authority verified his Sacramento staffing commitment and whether the correct billing rate was applied.
Kennah's hourly billing rate jumped nearly 23%
Shortly after Choudri was appointed CEO in 2024, Kennah's hourly billing rate increased by nearly 23% to $505.91, while California was still paying for his trips between Denver and Sacramento.
The contract includes a calculation that pays eligible consultants more when they work from their home office rather than the Sacramento headquarters. However, the contract lists Sacramento as Kennah's office and specifies the lower rate.
After Choudri took over, however, Kennah began consistently billing the higher rate, even when records indicate he was in Sacramento.
The authority did not answer our specific questions about the higher billing rate, who approved it or whether Kennah was eligible for it.
California paid more for the same number of hours under Choudri
The difference becomes more apparent when comparing invoices.
The state was billed nearly $13,000 more for 22 days' worth of work.
The records also don't establish that either invoice contained an unauthorized charge, but they show how much the cost of one consultant's work and travel increased in less than a year.
During much of that period, the authority was still paying for flights from Denver.
What was California getting for the additional spending? The authority did not respond to our specific questions.
The state rated the work "Very Good"
Despite the findings involving travel and staffing, the authority's own performance evaluation praised the contractor.
In July 2025, SYSTRA|TYPSA received a "Very Good" rating. The contract manager called the firm's work "superb."
The June 2025 invoice included a $318,048.57 performance-fee adjustment. That positive assessment matters.
The travel investigation doesn't establish that the firm's engineering designs were deficient and nothing in the records independently establishes that the performance adjustment was improper.
However, the performance rating raises a separate accountability question.
Was the authority evaluating only the work the contractor delivered, or also whether it fulfilled the staffing and travel commitments it made to win the contract?
If those requirements weren't enforced, who was responsible?
A quarter-billion dollars in consultant payments. Who's watching?
Since Ian Choudri became CEO, California's high-speed rail project has fallen further behind, even as the authority said it is paying four major consulting contractors more than a quarter-billion dollars over two fiscal years.
And that money wasn't for laying track.
These contractors provide legal advice, financial guidance, program management and engineering design. Their work helps shape what gets built, how it gets built and what taxpayers pay.
Whistleblowers inside the high-speed rail authority question whether the projected savings account for further delays and additional consultant work.
The authority says it's revising designs and reducing the project's scope to cut costs. But the inspector general found the schedule slipped nine months in less than a year, while much of the projected savings came from plans to build less, including reducing sections of the railway from two tracks to one.
Meanwhile, CBS California uncovered missed train-purchasing deadlines that cost the state $4 billion in federal funding.
The authority says in-person work matters
In its response to the inspector general's investigation, the California High-Speed Rail Authority defended paying to fly consultants into the office, citing Gov. Gavin Newsom's return-to-office executive order for state workers.
But the inspector general noted that the order applies to state agencies and employees — not consultant travel.
Further, the SYSTRA contract already required its key personnel to work in Sacramento. State employees aren't reimbursed for commuting to their regular workplace.
In a response to CBS California, the authority said it is tightening travel oversight, updating reimbursement rules and requiring new training for consultants and contract managers before approving additional travel expenses.
"Only travel that is pre-approved, within contract scope and consistent with state regulations will be eligible for reimbursement," the authority said.
Those broader savings figures don't explain why the authority paid prohibited international travel expenses or repeatedly reimbursed key personnel to travel to Sacramento.
In a response to CBS California, the SYSTRA|TYPSA Joint Venture said:
"We take all matters related to contract compliance, governance, and billing seriously, and we address them through established internal review and oversight processes," said Heather Hornyak, the firm's director of corporate communications.
The joint venture declined to answer specific questions and did not explain why three key positions involved out-of-state travel despite its Sacramento staffing commitment, who approved Kennah's higher billing rate or why the authority was charged for travel the inspector general found prohibited under the contract.
CBS California also sent Kennah detailed questions about his travel, billing rate and Sacramento work schedule. Kennah did not respond.
The missing $250 million slide
The California High-Speed Rail Authority initially prepared a presentation responding to the inspector general's investigation that emphasized how little it spent on consultant travel compared with total consultant payments.
The original presentation included a pie chart showing that the authority paid four consulting contractors approximately $252.7 million over two fiscal years. About $2 million went toward travel.
The inspector general reviewed roughly half of that travel spending and found more than half was unallowable under state regulations or contract terms.
But the pie chart disappeared from the presentation the authority ultimately delivered to its board.
The revised version also removed the contract-by-contract payment totals.
Asked why, an authority spokesperson said in an email, "The information was streamlined to keep the focus clear for the Board and the public."
But whistleblowers inside the authority say the spending figures raise a much bigger accountability question.
If California couldn't enforce basic travel and staffing requirements, who was overseeing the rest of the quarter-billion dollars paid to these consultants?
The receipts in this investigation don't establish that Kennah or SYSTRA caused the project's delays, but they raise questions about whether the authority enforced the contracts with the consultants who are helping design it.
We'll continue pushing for answers.
This story published first on CBS News at 12:29 p.m. on Oct. 15, 2026.
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