The problem is not hidden in the fine print. It is sitting in plain view across some of Oregon’s most visited public spaces.
A new performance audit from the Oregon Secretary of State’s Audits Division lays out a troubling reality inside the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department: required safety inspections at certain parks are not being consistently completed or even recorded, and the system used to track state-owned assets is unreliable enough to raise concerns about accountability, safety, and financial exposure.
This is not a minor paperwork issue. It is a breakdown in routine oversight inside a system that millions of people rely on every year.
The audit focused on overnight campgrounds, the kinds of places where families pitch tents, park RVs, and use shared facilities like restrooms and utility buildings. These are also the same structures where state employees work, which brings them under safety standards tied to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Those rules, along with internal policies, require quarterly inspections and proper documentation.
Auditors found that those basic expectations are not being met across all locations.
At some parks, inspections were inconsistent. At others, records were incomplete or missing altogether. In one case, there were no inspection records for a three-year span between 2022 and 2025. That gap is not just administrative. It means there is no clear record of whether buildings were evaluated for safety at all during that time.
Many of these structures are not isolated workspaces. They are used by visitors, volunteers, and contractors, expanding the potential risk beyond state employees. When inspections are skipped or undocumented, problems that should be caught early can go unnoticed, increasing the likelihood of injuries, costly repairs, or legal claims against the state.
The audit makes clear that the exposure is not theoretical. It is practical, measurable, and avoidable.
At the same time, auditors identified deeper issues in how the department tracks what it owns. Oregon’s park system is massive, spanning more than 250 properties and over 113,000 acres, with 362 miles of public coastline. Within that system are more than 2,000 buildings along with roads, parking areas, utility systems, cabins, yurts, docks, and a wide range of equipment and vehicles.
Despite that scale, the asset management system used by the department cannot consistently account for those resources.
Records were found to be incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate. Some assets were missing from the system entirely. Others were incorrectly listed as inactive or unaccounted for. When a public agency cannot clearly track its own infrastructure, the consequences ripple outward. Insurance coverage can be miscalculated. Financial reporting can be skewed. Equipment and property can effectively disappear within the system.
For taxpayers, that translates into risk on multiple fronts.
The audit outlines a path forward, but it also underscores how much work remains. Among the recommendations are clear, enforceable procedures for quarterly inspections, defined responsibility for who conducts and verifies those inspections, and stronger documentation standards to ensure the work is actually recorded.
It also calls for updated asset management policies that cover areas currently overlooked, along with regular training for staff to reinforce expectations around tracking, tagging, and reporting. A new asset management system is already in progress, but auditors emphasize that it must be built to capture accurate, complete data if it is going to fix the underlying problems.
The timing of these findings matters. Oregon’s parks are not lightly used. They draw roughly 51 million visits each year, including about 2.6 million overnight campers. In Southern Oregon, those numbers translate directly into economic activity, tourism traffic, and daily use by local residents who depend on these spaces for recreation and community life.
When oversight slips in a system of that size, the effects are not confined to spreadsheets or internal reports. They show up in the condition of facilities, the safety of public spaces, and the financial stability of the agency responsible for maintaining them.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read pointed to the state’s long history of safe and accessible parks as something worth protecting. The audit, in that sense, is less about assigning blame and more about drawing a line between what has worked in the past and what must be corrected moving forward.
The message is straightforward. Oregon’s parks remain one of the state’s greatest public assets, but maintaining that reputation requires more than scenery and tradition. It requires consistent oversight, accurate records, and a system that knows what it owns and whether it is safe.
Right now, the audit shows that standard is not being met everywhere it should be.