For the thousands of people making a living in Fresno County government, it's become a situation of haves and have-nots -- at least when it comes to the lucrative benefit of pensions.

Sometime in the next few months, Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin's administration will be asked to prove that the city's annual $200,000-plus lobbying effort is worth the money.

A million bucks -- blown on a project that never got off the ground. Nearly $200,000 for another project -- wasted, as well. More than $5 million spent on code enforcement -- no justification for it. These are just a few of the taxpayer-funded disasters made by the city of Fresno's housing division over the past three years, according to a federal investigation.

Six months after passage of a $280 million bond measure in 2010, Fresno Unified School District changed the way many of its construction contracts were awarded. The traditional practice of choosing the lowest bid was placed on the back burner. Moved to the front was a method called lease/leaseback that let the district simply pick the contractor it wanted.

A handful of prominent Valley families stand to lose big if tax breaks under the state's 47-year-old farm preservation program -- called the Williamson Act -- are scaled back.

Fresno County jailers are working more overtime than they have in years, which some fear may be a threat to safety.

A 1974 memo from Dow Chemical describes several chemicals in a widely used farm fumigant as "garbage." Today, one of those useless chemicals threatens drinking water for more than 1 million people across the San Joaquin Valley.

The lowest-paid workers took the biggest hit in last year's budget cuts at Fresno City Hall.

Dozens of Fresno County government workers who retired last year collected a final check fattened with tens of thousands of dollars of extra pay for unused vacation and sick time. Four retirees collected more than $60,000 apiece.

Walk into any Los Angeles restaurant and you're likely to see a card in the window with a letter grade for its most recent health inspection. In Sacramento, you can find a green, yellow or red sign with the same kind of information. In Fresno County, you'll see nothing of the sort.

Blanca Espinoza talks to her 2-year-old in a blend of Spanish and English. She's offering a motherly reminder on manners, which little Avelino grasps quickly, responding with the magic word: "Please." This scene might not have happened without California's Safe Surrender law, which gives parents an alternative to abandoning their newborns. In 2006, Espinoza and her husband adopted Avelino, who was surrendered at a Fresno hospital.

The Fresno Bee spent three months trying to dissect how council members have used "discretionary funds" since 2003. City officials responded with hundreds of pages of financial data that only an accountant could love.