CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / SACRAMENTO

State transportation officials steered $29 million in contracts to a company at which one of their former colleagues is an executive, raising questions about favoritism in the purchasing process, according to a legislative report released Wednesday.

At a hearing, lawmakers on an Assembly oversight committee expressed anger over the deal, which involves the state purchasing traffic-counting devices built with technology that the California Department of Transportation helped develop.

Former Caltrans official Hamed Benouar went to work for the firm that later profited from the technology when it received the contracts.

“Having employees of the state . . . going outside and making good money off the taxpayers is not appropriate,” said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), chairman of the Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review.

The panel also released Caltrans e-mails questioning whether the state got the best deal possible when it offered the contracts to Sensys Networks, where Benouar is vice president of business development.

-- Patrick McGreevy