LOS ANGELES -- California's prisons department is disclosing details of more than $4 billion worth of contracts, nearly four years after it and other agencies were ordered to provide the information to improve spending oversight.

The long delay ran afoul of a 2003 state directive stipulating it was "required" and "critical" for details on state contracts to be entered into a huge computerized library kept by the state General Services Department.

"It's something that's been a work in progress for years," California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Seth Unger said. "The goal is to be able to provide greater transparency in our contracts."

The department turned over the massive database early in the week. General Services still was working Friday to post the records to its public Web site.

The release of the documents came after an investigation by The Associated Press exposed oversight problems with the database.

The AP found the state Justice Department had improperly shielded from the public hundreds of contracts it labeled "confidential." The agency has since revised its policies for using the label and is working to release more records after lawmakers threatened to withhold money from the agency.

The state Transportation Department also used the confidential label on hundreds of contracts, even though General Services never gave it permission do so and was unaware of the practice, the AP found.

The database was created in 2003 under former Gov. Gray Davis to bring order to a mishmash of aging bookkeeping systems across state government that made it virtually impossible to keep a tight rein on the expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars for everything from toilet paper to shotguns to software. Contracts in most cases are public records; the database is intended to provide greater visibility over how agencies select and pay contractors.

General Services warned agencies in 2003 they could lose the authority to buy goods if they failed to list all contracts and purchases over $5,000 in the computerized records, formally known as the State Contract and Procurement Registration System.

DGS never curbed the Corrections Department's buying power, however, despite the long wait for compliance.

"While there have been significant delays and significant technical and operational difficulties ... we have nevertheless succeeded in getting their information," General Services spokesman Bill Branch said.

"That, after all, was the object we were striving for."

Corrections is not disclosing all its contracts. About 2,600 deals for medical services are being withheld by the federal entity overseeing inmate health care. A group of those contracts covering just one year, July 2005 through June 2006, are valued at up to $433 million.

In addition, about 200 contracts tied to litigation will not be disclosed while the agency determines if they should be deemed confidential. Some bond-fund contracts will be entered later.

Rachael Kagan, spokeswoman for the federal court-appointed receiver controlling inmate care, said the medical contracts were withheld under a legal exemption intended to safeguard competitive bidding practices. She described the department's medical contracting as "in a complete state of disarray."

"We have no interest in keeping public information from the public," Kagan said. "We're working with DGS ... to participate without endangering the ability to negotiate favorable medical contracts, so inmates can get care at competitive rates."

The records that were released include more than 4,000 contracts and amendments, and thousands more purchase orders. The contracts and amendments alone, issued from 2003 through 2007, are valued at about $4.1 billion.

The records illustrate the breadth of Corrections spending: Center Point Inc. of San Rafael won more than $100 million in contracts to provide substance abuse treatment; a Modesto funeral home was awarded a $400,000 contract for cremations; a Montclair company, Industrial Waste Utilization Inc., won more than $30 million in contracts to remove spent ammunition, oil and other hazardous waste; and various law firms were paid tens of millions of dollars for services.

General Services acknowledges it still can't say with confidence to what degree agencies are complying with its order to disclose all contracts.

It's "essentially an honor system and we depend on others to alert us to any agency that should be making entries and isn't," Branch said.

Associated Press Writer Bob Porterfield in San Francisco contributed to this story.

On the Net:

General Services: http://www.dgs.ca.gov