State parks to receive windfall — $20 million of hidden funds

Open spaces around California will soon benefit from about $20 million of the $54 million in hidden public funds recently uncovered at the state parks department, after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Tuesday authorizing the expenditure.

AB1478 also prohibits the state from closing any parks for two years, lets officials use $10 million in bond money to tackle maintenance issues and increases oversight of the parks department by an independent state commission.

The $54 million surplus, which existed for more than a decade in two separate specialfund accounts, was apparently known to some parks department staff for years but went undiscovered by state finance officials until July, at a time when the parks department was threatening to close parks due to a cash shortage. The disclosure prompted anger among lawmakers as well as members of the public who had chipped in time and helped raise money to keep parks from closing.

Shortly after the discovery, the governor proposed using $20 million of the money to match private donations. That $20 million was from the State Parks and Recreation Fund, which comes from user fees and is meant for general park operations; the other $34 million in discovered money is in the Off-Highway Vehicle Fund, and is earmarked for maintenance of those types of parks.

Ultimately, Brown and lawmakers agreed to use $10 million of the State Parks and Recreation Fund money on parks that need maintenance, and the other half as matching funds for private donations.

Assembly Budget Chairman Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills (Los Angeles County), who authored AB1478, said Brown’s signature ensures “that all of our parks will stay open to be enjoyed.”

“Rogue bureaucrats lied to all of us,” he said. “The governor acted swiftly and appropriately to remove them. Now, after signing this bill, we can move forward.”

Brown signed another bill last week, also by Blumenfield, that intends to make sure that agencies cannot squirrel away money in the future. State finance officials told lawmakers last month that the funds stayed hidden because parks employees kept reporting different revenue balances to two state agencies.

AB1487 requires that the controller and Department of Finance be given the same information and that both agencies use the same accounting principles when evaluating the state’s more than 560 special funds.