| Public Release Date: September 29, 1995 | No. 95-39 |
The Department of Natural Resources, in its 1994-95 biennial budget narrative, describes its mission as follows:
The department finances its operations through a combination of legislative appropriations, dedicated receipts, and gifts. The department is comprised of eight program areas, including operations support. Rodney Sando is the commissioner of the agency.
Our audit scope included a review of the department's control over allocating its appropriations, the department's process for accepting gifts, including Critical Habitat Matching gifts, and the payments to Indian reservations and to counties in lieu of taxes for the year ended June 30, 1994.
We concluded that, for fiscal year 1994, the department complied with appropriation laws when allocating appropriations to individual accounts within the department's eight program areas. The department also followed applicable Department of Finance policies when transferring funds between programs and appropriations.
We also concluded that the department generally complied with the state gift acceptance policies and the requirements of the Critical Habitat Match Program. However, we found that the department did not promptly deposit cash donations given to state parks, the department did not properly document the value of certain donated land, and the department did not comply with the gift acceptance policy for partial land donations for the Critical Habitat Program.
Finally, we concluded that department payments to Indian bands and to counties in lieu of taxes complied with applicable laws and agreements.
