Lawmakers ordered the audit last year after a hidden surplus
of tens of millions of dollars was discovered at the same time the
Parks department was threatening to close 70 parks.
Now, a new audit finds the Department fails to track spending
at each of California's 270 state parks.
"They were actually using outdated and incomplete cost data to come up with these operating costs for these parks because they don't track or budget at that level," says Margarita Fernandez with the State Auditor's Office.
"So that made it even more difficult to measure what the impact of these decisions were going to be."
Instead, operating costs were estimated based on geographic regions using 10-year-old figures.
Fernandez says the State Auditor plans to release another report later this year that examines staffing issues and vacation buyouts in the Parks Department.