A Call to Outsource California State Parks

Sipa Press / Associated Press

A state commission says management of properties such as the Hearst Castle could be outsourced to reduce financial pressure on parks.

California lawmakers should outsource management of some state parks to cope with chronic under funding, advised an influential state commission, which found that the state had expanded its park system without providing adequate income to support it.

The Little Hoover Commission, in a report released Monday, asked Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders to help the state Department of Parks and Recreation restructure the way it manages its 280 parks to avoid the kind of fiscal crisis that led to plans to close 70 parks in 2012 before last-minute maneuvers spared them.

Parks that mostly serve local visitors "should be realigned" to allow local control, while some with broader appeal could be managed differently, said the commission, whose reports are often considered by lawmakers.

The famed Hearst Castle, for example, may be better maintained by an outside operator such as the Getty Museum, the report suggested. The 115-room mansion of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst became state park property in 1958. Like many state park sites, it suffers from deferred maintenance because of decadeslong funding cuts, the report said.

"A great public institution is falling apart," said Virginia Ellis, a Little Hoover commissioner who chaired the report, in a statement. "Without a bold, new course equal to the vision that created the state park system, California risks a replay of closing parks that the state can no longer afford to operate."

Representatives of Gov. Brown and legislative leaders weren't immediately available for comment. A park service spokesman also wasn't immediately available for comment.

Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, which helped provide funding for some parks last year, praised the report but said time is short to implement a new plan, given that a moratorium on park closures passed by the legislature last year expires in 2014. "The moment to confront these challenges is now," she said in a statement.

Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com