A) Idealistic voters with little interest in detail or executions.

B) Hard working state employees executing in an ineffective way because they are working on over constrained problems with conflicting and sometime impossible goals.

C) A number of opportunists that take advantage of poor rulemaking and bureaucratic disorganization.

For what it is worth, I dont think corruption is a major driver of problems, but bad policy detached from the practical considerations.

One simple example is SF parks maintenance:

The city wants to keep invasive species out, so it has staff to remove them. The city also believes in livable wages, so the workers make >100K. Residents dont like pesticides, so the workers must hand weed. Hand weeding doesnt work, so the City periodically pays outside consultants to come in and take care of the invasives (with pesticides and low paid workers).