Audit Accuses Conservancy of Wasting Money

A state audit of parkland acquisitions accuses some agencies of wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, failing to properly control spending and violating some state laws.

The report in particular singles out the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for going into debt for the 1991 acquisition of Paramount Ranch property in the Calabasas-Malibu area and Towsley Canyon in the Santa Clarita Valley.

In a report released last week after a two-year audit, state examiners chastised the conservancy for adding $2.2 million in interest to the cost of the purchases.

“That money could have been better spent in finding other properties to conserve,” said Robert Cabral, a state supervising auditor.

Conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston said Monday that the projects under question are among the most important undertaken by the mountains conservancy--one of five state agencies charged with acquiring land under the California Wildlife Protection Act of 1990.

Edmiston called the acquisitions “once in a lifetime opportunities” to protect wilderness areas from encroaching development. The Paramount Ranch purchase involved buying 336 acres on which county authorities had already approved construction of 150 homes. The purchase of 273 acres in Towsley Canyon blocked the county from turning the area into a landfill.

In both cases, the conservancy used promissory notes to acquire the properties because it lacked sufficient funds to purchase the properties outright.

Edmiston said his approach was no different than any home buyer acquiring a mortgage. “It is amazing to me that state auditors would take on two of our best projects,” he said.

Edmiston said the agency negotiated the time-payment agreements in 1991 after it had already undertaken a record 32 transactions to acquire a total of 3,819 acres that year. “We had scheduled out the appropriations for that year, but we knew we were going to have the money in the future,” he said.

The conservancy, formed in 1980, has acquired a total of about 28,000 acres. Of that, about 3,000 acres were purchased under agreements entailing promissory notes. Edmiston said all of the time-payment purchases have been paid in full.

The audit also criticized the State Coastal Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Board and the Department of General Services, all over purchases of land for conservation purposes.

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State Parklands Audit

From 1992 through 1995, parkland-acquiring state agencies spend $96.2 million on land acquisition, grants and restoration. Shown below is how the money was spent and by which agencies. (Agencies included: Wildlife Board, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Parks and Recreation, Coastal Conservancy.)

Source: California state auditor