Ugly numbers lurk in the books of China's local governments.
An annual audit released on June 24th showed that over 40bn yuan ($6bn) of state pension funds
were misappropriated last year in 13 of 25 provinces looked at.
There may be more dodgy practices but the auditors only have the resources to focus on certain bits of the country each year.
Among other things, the money was used to repay government debts.
Another 4bn yuan was lifted from a programme to pay for refurbishing schools.
And billions more were diverted away from farming subsidies.
Local officials "are always stealing our money",
said one angry commenter on Weibo, a social-media platform.
"It's like trusting the mice to look after our rice," wrote another.
In truth, local officials are motivated more by desperation than greed.
Across provinces, counties and cities, they are responsible for the bulk of government spending.
But much of China's tax revenue flows instead to the central government.
Local officials used to be able to raise more funds by selling land to developers.
But a property slump since 2021 has slashed that source of revenue.
Past splurges on infrastructure, meanwhile, have left many governments with huge "hidden" debts,
usually within semi-commercial firms known as local-government financing vehicles.
The IMF estimates that such firms sit on 66trn yuan of debt, equivalent to about half China's annual GDP.
China's central government has little sympathy for what it regards as fiscal irresponsibility.
It hopes that with better budgeting local governments can manage to cut waste at all levels