April 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 55

and employee benefits. Currently, those charges total $38 million. " So, from $177 million we are now being charged about $38 million, thus our real budget
has seen a decrease of $38 million over the last couple of years.
" In fairness, we knew this was coming, " he continues. " Every department knew that we're addressing a
$1 billion shortfall, either in revenue or in anticipating
expenses-primarily in employee-covered expenses.
Over the past two years we've been able to wipe out
about $600 million and we have about $400 million left
from this year and next. That will get us in equilibrium
between expenses and revenue.
" What that means for me is, I'm going to have fewer employees, " Mukri says. " Eighty-six percent of
my budget goes directly to employee salaries. So we

will see a decline from about 2,000 employees three
years ago to roughly 1,500 full-time employees today.
Three years ago we had roughly 8,000 park employees. We're hovering at about 4,500. So we've taken tremendous cuts with the number of people. "
Cuts in his budget will extend to service delivery,
mostly in the form of reduced hours in some facilities
and in the consolidation of recreation centers in certain
areas. " We may not have baseball at three centers-it
may be at one-same thing with softball and basketball. We've also gotten out of the licensed childcare
business. "
It's the staff reductions that hurt most.
" Our recreation people are the best city employees
ever, " Mukri says. " They're there seven days a week,
365 days a year and their only job is to make people's

Aera Park in
Bakersfield, California

really have a choice now. To us,
it's not giving up anything because everybody wins and everybody is successful....When
budgets are cut, that's not going
to be cut and the youth will still
get to play. "
The city donated the land
(a water recharge area that is
flooded in the off-season), Aera
Energy contributed $250,000
for 15-year naming rights, and
BSWB coordinated the construction and will maintain the facility
for at least 15 years. Hoover says
term limits to naming rights are

critical, and in this case the limit
happened to dovetail nicely with
the maintenance agreement.
Once those three different
agreements were in place, other
companies came forward to donate such items as fencing and
the concession stand construction.
The park even got a reduced rate
for the sod and a local Target store
donated some extra concrete balls
from its store entrance, which
were repainted as giant baseballs at the park entrance. Thanks
to the added donations, and because BSWB was able to build

the park less expensively than if it
were a city project, more than 50
percent of the construction cost of
park was covered. The park now
also includes a playground and an
adult outdoor fitness center located near each other.
" Entering into this, and before
I started thinking about all this, I
wasn't so sure either, " Hoover admits. " But I see how this is a winwin for the city and especially for
the children....It's really popular in
pro sports, so why not? "
-Elizabeth Beard and
Maureen Hannan

www.NRPA .ORG

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Parks & Recreation 53

April 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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