Park & Recreation Budget Committee

by Scott Peters
for the Corridor News
May 2002

A year ago I put forward a proposal to expand the City Council's role in the budget process by creating year-round budget review committees that would take a hard look at the budgets of City departments and develop policies and spending strategies that would make them more effective in their service of the public. Spending the people's money should be the top concern at the City Council, yet the old process only allowed minimal time for budget oversight. In October 2001 the City Council passed a modified version of my initial proposal and in December the first budget working groups began reviewing the budgets of the Water Department and the Park and Recreation Department. I chair the Park and Recreation department working group joined by Councilmembers Atkins and Madaffer. Councilman Maienschein chairs the Water Department review, aided by Councilmembers Frye and Wear. This week I will present our findings to the Rules Committee of the City Council.

Our review of the Park and Recreation Department allowed us to develop a better understanding of how the department functions, its' strengths and weaknesses, and a more comprehensive understanding of the needs and challenges the department faces in the future. I wish that I could report that our review found untapped funds and an inefficient allocation of resources but I cannot. The working group came to the conclusion that our park system is chronically underfunded, has serious issues of deferred maintenance and unmet needs, and is stretched so thin on staffing that they are struggling to maintain their current level of service. We also found that the needs of the City's growing population are outpacing the General Fund's ability to adequately fund those needs.

Fortunately newer communities have been able to take advantage of developer fees to pay for new fields and recreation centers, but older communities are struggling to fund new facilities and keep up the existing ones. Facilities in newer communities, although beautiful now, are likely to fall into the same state of disrepair if we continue to do things that same old way. This is why the work group is recommending that new facilities create operation and maintenance endowment funds when they are built to avoid the specter of deferred maintenance, and we have recommended that a capital improvement program be developed to start bringing our older facilities back to their original luster.

We also need to begin to think like a business when we invest funds for Park and Recreation in future budgets. One of the best places to reap strong returns from our investments is by providing matching funds for state grants, and hiring grant writers and project managers that make us competitive for those grants. Many of you may have voted to approve Proposition 40, the statewide park bond, on the March ballot. This measure will provide $12 million in "per capita" funding for parks in San Diego. To get this money though, the City will need to provide at least $3 million in matching funds and hire staff to administer the grants once they are received. The 400% return we will receive on our investment shows that this is a smart use of resources even if it means additional costs in the short-term.

The Reasoned Public Policy Institute recently rated San Diego's Park and Recreation Department as the most efficient such department in California. Although high praise, this only meant that they spent the least amount, on the most people. That should not be our standard for a great parks department. We should measure the success of the department based on the amount of service they provide to the community and the satisfaction derived from that level of service.

To do this we need to develop a master plan for parks that will lay out a vision for what we believe our park system should look like and the level of service they should provide. After we have community support for this plan, it will be necessary to fund the plan, which will likely include going to the voters for bonding authority. I believe that if we can come up with a plan everyone can support, and make the case for increased funding to support that plan, the voters will give us their blessing to move forward. If we are serious about creating an outstanding park and recreation system, we have to get serious about developing a vision for that system and then funding it.