Council members are looking into need for increased funds for parks maintenance

Austin’s parkland acreage is growing along with the population – however, staffing for maintenance of those parks has not kept pace, according to a report discussed Wednesday among City Council’s Audit and Finance Committee. After comparing the number of parks maintenance workers in 2014 to the current number, analysts at the Parks and Recreation Department and budget and finance concluded that PARD “was providing a higher level of service frequency in FY 2014 than in FY 2023.”

PARD budgeted for 110 full-time grounds maintenance employees in FY 2023, according to Eric Nelson with the Financial Services Department. In 2014, the maintenance team was 105 full-time employees. Using 2023 standards, however, the department would have had only 96 such employees in 2014. Notably, the salary of grounds maintenance employees was $12 per hour in 2014 but was increased to $20 per hour by 2023.

Among the tasks performed by the maintenance workers, Nelson noted mowing, picking up litter and trash and servicing restrooms. In 2014, 69 percent of parks’ restrooms were serviced on a daily basis. But in 2023, only 3 percent of parks’ restrooms were serviced daily. The same pattern held true for other maintenance duties.

Nelson and PARD Assistant Director Liana Kallivoka explained that the department can staff to a defined level of service or it can service to the level of budgeted staff. Currently, PARD is servicing with the budgeted staff that it has, which may not meet public expectations.

Council Member Ryan Alter wanted to know exactly what the plan would be for meeting the current and projected needs of the parks.

Nelson told him the department would need “in the neighborhood of 190” full-time employees, as opposed to the current number of 110 – just for grounds maintenance at the same level as 2014.

Nelson also made it clear that in this tough budget year there are many other departments that need more employees. “If we ran this model for every department … we’d have similar stories” from many of them, he said.

Council Member Alison Alter, who chairs the committee, told Nelson she was disappointed that the final slide in his presentation – which showed that PARD needs an additional 80 employees for maintenance – was not displayed at Wednesday’s meeting.

“We still have to deal with people dealing with homelessness … in our parks,” she said. “That work is still there.”

If parks were to get the same level of maintenance they got in 2014, there would be 190 maintenance employees, but the department is asking for only an additional 16 maintenance workers, she said.

She concluded, “People deserve to understand that if we were at the ideal service level, we would have 80” new employees. “I understand that we have a lot of needs in other departments.”

She said they needed the data to illustrate to their colleagues that they are not currently delivering what the parks need. She said she concurred with her colleague, Ryan Alter, that they need a plan to get there.

A number of parks supporters, mostly representing nonprofit organizations such as the Trail Conservancy and the Austin Parks Foundation, urged the committee to advocate for a bigger city budget for parks maintenance.

Among those appearing to request more funding for parks maintenance were Ashley Fisher on behalf of the Trail Conservancy, Kayla Reese on behalf of the Austin Parks Foundation and Ted Siff, speaking for the Austin Outside Coalition.

“The Trail Conservancy is proud to be a partner of the city,” said Fisher, a former aide to Council members Bill Spelman and Pio Renteria and Mayor Steve Adler. “We have stepped up to provide important improvements to the Butler Trail. But we know the other park spaces also need help. We ask that the city do what they can to increase the overall parks maintenance budget and staff to provide crucial maintenance so that all Austinites can enjoy abundant and well-maintained park spaces.”

She noted that without the additional dollars and staff, there would be less time devoted to maintaining each park.

At the same time, the nonprofit Rewild ATX wrote a lengthy letter to committee members urging them to convince the city to perform “a detailed financial audit that is available to the public, covering the three nonprofits from their inception through 2023 and including a forecast of the next three years.” Waterloo Greenway is the third nonprofit referenced by the group. The Austin Monitor reported on the group’s request last week.

One question the group asked directly related to Wednesday’s report was: “How much funding from these non-profits goes to PARD or parks for maintenance, restoration, climate mitigation, or new parks land acquisition? We believe that total is less than 5%. How much of it goes to capital improvements? We believe it is more than 95%. But again, we do not know for certain because of the lack of transparency in these organizations and relationships.”

Austin Parks Foundation CEO Colin Wallis did not return a call to the Austin Monitor by Wednesday evening.

The Austin Parks Foundation explained in a blog post how they spent money received from Austin City Limits ticket sales. They said in part, “Austin Parks Foundation is a longtime partner with C3 Presents and the ACL Music Festival, which has contributed more than $63 million towards park projects over the last 19 years. … The contribution from the 2023 festival was the largest yet at $8.1 million – a whopping $900,000 increase from the previous year!

“In 2023, APF received $7.2M from ACL Fest 2022 proceeds. Here’s how that money was spent:

“$3.1M in city-wide park projects: Park projects require community input, extensive permitting and planning, so some of the projects identified by APF will take years to complete. These designated funds are earmarked for specific projects, and while the money may not be spent this year, it will be held for those projects until it can be used.

“$2.5M was spent to support the infrastructure that makes these park projects happen. These funds also support APF’s mission of improving parks and green spaces through volunteerism, programming and advocacy.”

Photo by Spawnzilla, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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