January 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 36

Executive Summary

T

hriving parks and park programs depend on public consensus. Consensus
that park land is valuable enough to preserve and maintain for public use-
and that the array of services park agencies provide is essential to the common good. Most Americans, when surveyed, express positive feelings about
parks and all that they represent. Historically, however, parks and recreation professionals have had few concrete, performance-related facts and industry standards
to offer the public. And in a time of diminishing budgets and increased competition for public and private funds, favorable public opinions of parks are simply not
enough. The profession must be armed with data-data that show in hours, participants, acres, dollars, and cents the value that parks and recreation agencies offer at
every jurisdictional level.
The National Recreation and Park Association
is committed to providing park professionals with
those critical facts and numbers-and in 2011
NRPA launched the first-ever national operating ratio database for park agencies. This report
represents the first annual compilation of key data
for the 2011 fiscal year from participating agencies
across the United States. The system, which relies
FIGURE 1

Jurisdiction Type
City
51.4%

County
14.0%

Town
11.3%

Special
District
9.3%

Other*
14.0%
*The category of " other " consists of a mix of the following jurisdiction types:
independent district/authority, township, regional/metro authority, borough, state,
school district, military department, and tribal lands/reservation.

2

2012 Parks and Recreation Special Report

on agencies to supply their own data through a
survey, is still in its early stages-but it offers an
informative look at the functions, structures, and
budgets of over 200 agencies of various sizes,
types, and regions.
How to Use and Read This Report
The information in this report should be used as
a tool for informed decision-making rather than
as an almanac of absolute standards. This report
is derived from the database as of November 15,
2011; and data can and will change throughout the
year. The NRPA online database platform, available 24/7, allows member users to run reports ondemand based on real-time data, thus, the most
current data are always available to registered
users who have completed profiles.
The report is organized into sections relating
to essential park agency functions: governance/
responsibilities, staffing/administration, budgeting, operations, programming, maintenance, and
planning. The presentations of data within each
section indicate the number of responses, with
results depicted by average, median (the 50th
percentile value), lower quartile (the observation
point below which 25 percent of responses occur),
and upper quartile (the observation point below
which 75 percent of responses occur).
Throughout the report are references to ratios
or " operating ratios. " This terminology indicates
the use of some basis for comparison (e.g., a numwww.nrpa.org
January 2012 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2012 - Parks & Recreation
