After years of cronyism, backroom deals and lawsuits, the California controller’s office has finally detailed the fiscal incompetence that has defined West Covina City Hall.

And even in a contemporary Southern California municipal landscape in which our city governments have come to be known more for financial shenanigans than for anything resembling efficient service to the citizenry, the report from Controller Betty Yee’s office is a doozy.

Because of personal animosities among current and former elected officials and city staffers, the toxic atmosphere in City Hall is even more complex than Yee’s report can begin to explain.

But what’s in the report itself is bad enough, for starters. The audit, requested to its credit by the current City Council and by local Assemblyman Roger Hernandez last year, found the city misused taxpayer money, violated state public contracting laws and inappropriately hired former City Manager Chris Chung and other employees.

The city, under Chung’s leadership and when he was in another managerial role there, had no real idea how much money it was bringing in or spending, the audit says. It failed to follow long-standing rules on accepting bids for public projects, sometime accepting a sole bid without seeking others. Chung and council members spent too much money with too little explanation for meals and hotels using the city’s credit card. City Hall cost its citizens a cool $1 million by selling a developer land that it didn’t have the right to sell.

And then there was the street repaving contract that city administrators increased by nearly $1.4 million to include two streets near the home of longtime former Councilman Steve Herfert, at his request, the audit says.

If it all seems another perfect storm of municipal corruption, the story is also impossible to follow without understanding that much of its complications are personal.

Hernandez, before he entered the Legislature, was a West Covina City Council member himself. The rare Democrat and liberal on an historically mostly Republican and conservative council, he was sued in 2009 by Chung, who accused the former councilman of creating a hostile work environment that at one point peaked with Hernandez allegedly chasing Chung from the building.

That Chung was later promoted from community development director to city manager after he lost the suit — which cost the city more than $1 million — clearly still irks Hernandez, who led the call, along with current council members, for the state audit. He says Chung’s promotion was payback by Herfert and other former council members Michael Touhey and Shelley Sanderson, also political foes of Hernandez.

And where are the West Covinans nominally served by those involved in this political infighting? Left to pay the bills and pick up the pieces of their shattered local government, that’s where.

With over 100,000 residents of diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds, West Covina is unusual in holding its council elections citywide rather than by district. Power has tended to accumulate in the affluent South Hills neighborhood. Are district elections the answer to these troubles? Perhaps, but not necessarily. What is needed first is a citizenry awakened by this scandal to its proper role of vigilant oversight of those who nominally serve the people but mostly serve themselves.