California ? Something is rotten at the state agency behind a splashy $7.3 million annual marketing blitz on television, billboards and in food magazines to promote California-grown avocados, a new state audit indicates.

Employees and board members at the obscure, Irvine-based California Avocado Commission enjoyed lavish perks and benefited from as much as $2 million in questionable spending in the last three years, the audit concluded.

Critics of the state’s complex system of quasi-governmental agricultural commissions said the audit provided more evidence of the need for heightened oversight of state-backed promotional schemes for dozens of California specialty crops, including apples, raisins and walnuts.