California State parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned on Friday after it was discovered that her department had not reported $54 million dollars of unspent money to the state finance department. This comes after Governor Jerry Brown’s push to close 70 state parks in order to save $22 million dollars to help close a budget gap. Parks department officials say that the money was not being embezzled, but instead collected over the last 12 years due to an error in accounting formulas. Coleman laid the blame for the enormous oversight on former deputy director Manuel Lopez, who was pressured into resigning in May following a scandal involving unauthorized vacation buybacks for park staffers.
