January 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 66

N R PA I n A c t i o n

PRORAGIS
The Ultimate Management Tool for Good and Bad Times
By Bill Beckner
Why PRORAGIS?

othing destroys an opinion
like a number. " The words of
corporate business guru Richard Sloma get at the heart of what makes
PRORAGIS such a powerful tool for park
and recreation agencies around the country. Information is key. Information may
not be a panacea in this time of slashed
budgets and squeezed programs-but
without information, the highest-ranking
person's opinion becomes by default the
final decision for your department.
No matter how your park agency is
currently positioned-whether your
very survival is at stake or you are one
of the fortunate few poised for expansion-your strategy is only as good as
the information you have to support it.
You cannot enter partnerships or agreements without understanding what is
being negotiated. You cannot effectively privatize a function or a park without
knowing what it actually costs to operate. You cannot reposition your agency
well without having a grasp of the value
it already contributes to the community. You cannot generate additional revenue without a thorough understanding
of your customer base. And, finally, you
cannot confidently build new management structures without a way to measure the performance of the old ones.
PROR AGIS provides information
about your department that may be
compared to all other departments-or
to selected departments. It is information that justifies your budgets and strategies, informs your planning processes,
verifies your capital acquisition and development initiatives, and provides you
with management benchmarks and best
practices for your operation.

What is PRORAGIS?
P ROR AGI S ( Pa rk a nd Rec reat ion

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JANUARY 2011

Operating Rational and Geographic Information System) is a searchable online
database of park agencies-enhanced
with web-based mapping capability. The
PRORAGIS profile is a little like Facebook and other Internet profile networks.
Each department completes the database questions, and the result is a comprehensive collection of data by which
to compare all aspects of all department
profiles. And all of that data is integrated with a state-of-the-art GIS mapping
system.
PRORAGIS is a merger of two previously existing NRPA products. The Operating Ratio Study and the GIS Model.
The 2009 Operating Ratio Study was distributed to NRPA member departments
in March 2009 and was intended to be
the first of a series of annual snapshots
of departments' jurisdictions, organizations, finances, resources, staffing, and
programs. Out of 3,100 surveys distributed, 679 usable surveys were returned-a return rate that provided
statistically accurate data for a national
study.
The database that resulted from the
2009 Operating Ratio Study was then
combined with a geographic information
system (GIS), so as to attach all values to
geographic reference points. A GIS is a
mapping system that depends on physically located objects. An object might be
a park, river, trail, ball field, tennis court,
or anything else that can be " geo-referenced. " Most of us have now used global positioning systems (GPS) to locate a
shop or restaurant according to its geographic coordinates-or to get detailed
driving directions to a site. The GIS system uses the same principle as GPS but
creates maps showing the variables for
your intended use. Mapping applications, such as Google Maps, use satellite photography to create a base map

www.NRPA .ORG

showing topography, streets, etc. As
valuable as this sort of base map application is, the informational value of a GIS
system is supercharged when layers of
data are overlaid on top of the base.
There are three basic geometric
units involved in GIS: a point, a line, and
a polygon (or enclosed space). The point
could be a park, ballfield, tree, or any
other geo-referenced object. The line
can be a road, trail, river, or any other
linear feature; and a polygon can be a
park, ball field, building, or any feature
that contains area of value to your use.
Each of these features and others
can be placed on a layer and overlaid
for spatial analysis. Units are associated
with a data table that allows for compilation and storage of significant amounts
of data. For example, a set of graphic
points could be used to identify all of the
trees in a park-and to record information about species, size, and condition.
In March 2010, NRPA completed the
GIS Model that standardized the attributes and values definitions for parks,
trails, and facilities. The GIS Model was
created because there were as many
different definitions as there were departments, and an " apples to apples "
approach was needed.
Once the GIS Model was complete,
the Operating Ratio Study next became
a top priority. Obviously, a continuous
study would both broaden the database and mean simple annual updates
for those departments who had already
submitted a profile. In undertaking the
continuous study, NRPA determined that
up to 70% of park and recreation departments do not have access to their own
GIS. The beauty of PRORAGIS, then, is
that the creation of a department profile offers much more than an interactive, real-time, searchable database.
It provides every profiled agency with

January 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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