Title
Parks Deferred Maintenance (Goal 2)
Body
RECOMMENDED ACTION (Motion):
Staff will provide an overview of the Parks Deferred Maintenance plan and support a discussion by the City Commission on the proposed goal.
BACKGROUND:
Goal 2: Address Critical Facility Needs
Community Parks Deferred Maintenance
*Determine revenue options for the long-term maintenance of City Parks and Recreational Facilities for the Commission to consider.
The most significant challenges in our Parks, Cemetery Operations and Facilities Divisions are deferred maintenance and staffing levels. These issues exist due to our aging infrastructure and lack of a sufficient, dedicated funding source. The issues are magnified by the addition of multiple new parks and facilities over the past few years to meet the needs and demands of the growing community. Our adopted Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update (2008) identifies improving maintenance staffing levels and addressing deferred maintenance as our top priorities. Examples of these items include but are not limited to pathways, parking lots, irrigation systems, restrooms, and other infrastructure in need of renovation, updating or complete replacement.
Historically, the Parks Division has been critically understaffed for the amount of parks and open space acreage responsibility. This was highlighted in our 2008 Parks & Rec Master Plan Update, in which our consultant indicated that ours was the most grossly understaffed maintenance department they had seen to date, having completed dozens of such studies across the nation. The inability to substantially improve our staffing levels is tied to the reliance on the General Fund almost entirely, with no dedicated source of maintenance revenue. Over the past year, Community Services staff have held joint work sessions with City Commission and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee to detail our deferred maintenance backlog of $27.4 million and the need to address staffing levels. Discussion also included feasible alternate funding sources to resolve the problem.
With Commission guidance, staff are moving forward with a plan to prioritize the needs, finalize a complete project list, refine costs and identify a funding method that will have broad community support through a public vote. Over the course of the next 12-18 months, this plan will include a thorough public engagement process, establishing a Community Advisory Committee and completing statistically valid surveys of our community to ultimately provide the information needed for a successful vote. Total cost of implementation would be approximately $150,000.
In the 2017-2019 budget cycle, the Commission dedicated funding to address critical parks deferred maintenance projects. Staff are recommending a continuance of this funding for the 2019-2021 fiscal year. Working with the City Manager, the Community Services Director proposes dedication of $200,000 of this available revenue annually. With this dedicated revenue, we would continue to address some of the most needed deferred maintenance items in our parks system each year until a more permanent solution can be implemented.