Inflated prices cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year.
This article also appeared in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
About Katharine
Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior reporter for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, the weekly radio show and podcast, co-produced with PRX. Her journalism has won many national awards, including the Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award two years in a row and a Peabody award. Before Reveal, she was a senior writer for Salon and for Fast Company magazine. Mieszkowski has a bachelor's degree from Yale University. She grew up outside Houston, but now lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. @kmieszkowski