The Associated Press yesterday issued a story covering the release of the Government Accountability Office audit of the Valles Caldera Trust. Among other newspapers, the story was covered in the Denver Post. Click here to read the article from the Post in full. The first portion of the article is included below in its entirety:
A federal report says the land management experiment on New Mexico’s Valles Caldera National Preserve is plagued by managerial problems, lack of planning and legal stumbling blocks, and it’s uncertain the operation could be self-supporting by a 2015 deadline.
The report by the Government Accountability Office provides more ammunition for critics who say the public-private experiment should be ended and the remote, 89,000-acre preserve turned over to a federal agency.
The preserve, a collapsed volcano that is now a series of huge, grassy bowls ringed by mountains, was bought by the federal government nine years ago and is run by a nine-member trust.
It’s supposed to be financially self-sustaining by the end of 2015, when federal funding would dry up.
But the GAO said the trust is at least five years behind schedule. It hasn’t developed a strategic plan or monitoring systems, and has weak financial management, according to the recently released report.
Stephen Henry, chairman of the trust’s board, acknowledged in a letter to the GAO that “there is no excuse for these plans and controls to be lacking.”
Once again, click here to read this article in its entirety.
