THE OAK PARK PARK DISTRICT
CAN ACHIEVE FISCAL HEALTH -
EXAMINE EXPENSES, GENERATE NEW REVENUES


VOTE NO! TO THE APRIL 2005 TAX-INCREASE REFERENDUM INCREASING THE PARK DISTRICT TAX LEVY BY 131% !!!!


Quick View: The Savings in Table Form | Oak Park Spending Exorbitant Compared to Neighbors
The Scientists' Tool -- Order of Magnitude Calculations


Here are some suggestions to get the park district out of its fiscal quandary without a tax-increase referendum. I identify annual additional revenues and/or cost savings of $1.40 million. I apologize for incorrect statements and errors in estimates that may appear.

It should be made clear that the fault does not lie entirely with the park district. All municipal bodies have a reserve fund to pay for long-term capital maintenance and improvements. The unfortunate circumstance that the board faces is that their reserve fund has been depleted by expenses associated with the Barrie Park cleanup. The Barrie Park contamination by Commonwealth Edison occurred, however, when this land was owned by the village. It seems to me that the village has a moral, if not legal, responsibility to come to the aid of the park district.

Les Golden's 16-Point Plan to Reduce Costs and Generate Additional Revenues for the
Oak Park Park District


ITEM TO GENERATE ANNUAL SAVINGS OR ADDITIONAL REVENUE

SAR -- LOW*

SAR -- HIGH*

reduce recreation center staff $50,000 $100,000
increase pool/ice rink user fees 460,000 460,000
sod fees for adult soccer leagues 10,000 30,000
reduce use of recreation centers a/c 30,000 30,000
program fees surcharge 200,000 200,000
sports team fees 10,000 10,000
state grants 100,000 100,000
increase employee benefits self-pay 100,000 100,000
childrens' circus ticket/concessions 10,000 10,000
reduce schedule of custodial care 10,000 10,000
streamline brochure printing/mailing 100,000 160,000
on-line confirmation of class registration 40,000 40,000
mowing of grass every other week 24,000 45,000
move the offices to a recreation center 10,000 20,000
management hiring freeze 50,000 80,000
other cost savings 100,000 150,000
TOTAL $1,304,000 $1,545,000

*Order of magnitude estimates. For discussion of this technique see:
The Scientists' Tool -- Order of Magnitude Calculations

THE SAVINGS

1. When I played in Field Playground as a kid, there were 2 supervisors working with dozens of kids. From 8:00 a.m. till dusk dozens of kids played n ping-pong and nok-hockey tournaments. tether ball, and four-square, and large group games such as capture the flag. During June and July the playgrounds were full of 20 to 30 kids rehearsing their act for the annual recreation department circus. Now, when I walk Cicero, Skipper, and Emerson through Field, I get the idea that the amount of supervision today is not needed. Too often the supervisors are sitting in their office watching t.v., on the phone, or reading. The board should consider the amount of expenditures in this area. I estimate this could save $50,000 - $100,000 annually.

2. I was shocked to read that $460,000 in red ink is generated by the pools and ice rink. The board should raising fees to eliminate that loss.

3. As a frequent user of Lindberg (Greenfield) Park, I notice that non-resident adult soccer leagues chew up the fields every fall. Perhaps the same occurs at Taylor Park. The cost of resodding ranges from $10,000 to $30,000. The board could evaluate means of recovering these costs, by instituting appropriate fees for these leagues.

4. The previous Executive Director placed large capacity air conditioning units in the recreation centers. At least at Field, the recreation center office also has a window air conditioner. These units run all summer long, nights and Sundays included. Why after almost 100 years, did the centers need air conditioning units? People in the refrigeration business with whom I have spoken told me that restricting or eliminating their use might save $30,000 in electric costs. The board should consider pulling the plug on these units.

5. The committee has suggested a surcharge in program user fees. If the board made such a surcharge permanent, annual additional revenues of $200,000 could be achieved.

6. Although this would be painful, the board might consider charging a fee for all sports leagues that use the fields, to be paid by the players' families or the team sponsors. Based on 50 teams paying $200 each, this could generate $10,000.

7. With such an emergency, this is the time for officials to work together. Park district officials should work with those who represent Oak Park in Springfield to obtain state funds. Such efforts should be able to bring $100,000 of state funds to help Oak Park in this emergency.

8. As with all governmental bodies, a major portion of the park district budget of $6.8 million is for salaries. In corporate America, employees are being asked to pay a larger portion of their own pension and health plans. The park district might consider asking their employees if they would consider in these near-desperate times paying for a portion of their benefit plan. I estimate this might save $100,000 each year.

9. The board should consider bringing back the circus. For generations, the kids would perform animal acts and the recreation center directors would put on clown acts, supervised by head clown Bud Corry. As the band leader with my twin brother, I still have scripts for some of these shows, and at least one former "ringmaster" still lives in Oak Park. With 30 kids from each center participating, a paid attendance of 750-1000 each night was standard. At $5 a ticket plus concession sales, that would generate $10,000.

10. Some of the custodial care could be done by the supervisors. Reducing the number of nights that the custodians work could reduce these costs by $10,000. Are the custodians needed every night?

11. The costs of printing and mailing activity booklets twice a year could be reduced drastically. I estimate the cost of mailing 20,000 large pieces at $10,000, and the cost of printing at about $20,000-$30,000. With four seasonal mailings, that adds up to an annual cost of roughly $100,000-$160,000. With 6 units of government in Oak Park, nearly 50 government buildings are in the village, including recreation centers, schools, park district concession stands, township facilities, fire stations, post offices, and the seats of government. The booklets could be distributed at these approximately 50 sites.

Using the same calculation that is used to determine the distance to the nearest extraterrestrial intelligent civilization based on the size of our galaxy and the suggested number of such civilizations, I calculate that the average distance from any home to the nearest distribution site is about 900 feet. That is about a 2 block walk.

If every board member convinced his church to place the booklets on its free literature counter, the number of distribution sites could be doubled. No reason exists to limit the distribution among government and church buildings. Banks and at least those businesses who belong to the chamber of commerce could also carry the booklets. If a total of 100 sites were available, the distance to a distribution site would be only 630 feet, a 1 1/2 block walk. With 200 sites, the average walk would be only one block.

In addition, the booklets could be published on the park district website. Of course, residents who have enrolled in programs in the recent past or who request that a copy be mailed to them could continue to receive copies in the mail.

The park district could then operate this distribution as a business would. As in the newspaper business, the number of booklets in distribution could then be determined and the size of the printing reduced accordingly. This would save not only direct printing costs but also trees.

In the spirit of the enhanced intergovernmental cooperation that I propose, all the many newsletters that are distributed to villagers could be similarly distributed. This would generate additional savings. With district 97, district 200, the park district, the township, the village, and the library (which should be applauded for including its mailing with the village newsletter) printing and mailing their newsletters, it is conceivable that $1 million of taxpayer money and countless trees could be saved annually.

12. Confirmations for those registering for classes and programs occurs through the mailing of postcards. On-line registration and confirmation could save approximately $40,000 annually.

13. The grass is mowed weekly at each recreation center and park. Our guess at the weekly cost is $800 to $1500. These are soccer and baseball fields, not putting greens. Making the mowing every other week instead of weekly over the 30 months from April through October would save $24,000 to $45,000.

14. The administration offices could be moved from the park district building on Madison Street into one of the recreation centers. Use of Stevenson for example would create a presence there that would have the additional benefit of reducing the need of costly security for the skate park. That large building could then be sold to private interests, generating property and sales taxes. With the gymnastics center next door, a natural tenant would be a sporting goods store. Our estimate of $10,000 to $20,000 annual savings is based on the cost of owning a home in Oak Park.

15. The district could impose a management hiring freeze. In 2004 two positions became vacant from attrition. Instead of passing the savings on to the taxpayers, the board created a new middle-management position of recreation director, the first in the 100-year history of the park district/recreation department. Not creating such a position could have saved the taxpayers $80,000 annually.

16. A myriad of means of generating smaller amounts of revenue and cost savings exist. During the summer of 2004, it was pointed out that the water fountain at the southeast end of Lindberg Park had been broken for 3 years, with the water running nonstop, despite citizens informing both the staff and the board of the situation. This cost the taxpayers $10,000. This failure to repair damaged infrastructure, fountains, buildings, sidewalks, and blacktops, indicates ineptitude at the highest levels of the district and calls for an external review.

As another example, the "Taste of Oak Park" is a simple money-making instrument for its sponsor; charge that sponsor a fee for using Scoville Park as a place of business. The water sprinkling in Lindberg Park makes no sense. It after all was a marsh, the grass did fine for nearly 100 years, and the sprinklers are on timers, which explains why they are sometimes on after a day of heavy rain. The board might consider terminating the sprinkling and saving money on the water bill.

Furthermore, every fall, thousands of dollars of plantings are dug up and sent to landfills. The board could sponsor a plant distribution administered by the fine women of the garden club to offer these plants to the public and save the landscaping and dumping costs. Selling pots for the plants could generate a few dollars. Many non-resident groups use the recreation centers for their summer picnics. The board could consider imposing an increase in their permit fees. The street lights in the parks are on during daylight hours in the summer. The timers could be reset with the seasons to save additional electrical costs. When resodding occurs, the board could save labor and dump charges by leaving the sod for resident use, and notifying homeowners by notices in the local newspapers.

Such considerations, though involving small amounts individually, can yield another $100,000 to $150,000 in revenue generation and cost savings.

SUMMARY

These rough estimates add up to $1,304,000 to $1,545,000. Retirement, job attrition, and hiring part-time employees, who do not qualify for benefits, create other savings.




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OAK PARK SPENDING FAR EXCEEDS THAT OF NEIGHBORS
FOR PARKS AND RECREATION


OBJECTIVITY NOT PROPAGANDA IN PARK DISTRICT TAX VOTE



 

Those who are urging voters to vote "yes" in the park district tax-increase referendum predictably use arguments that the tax increase is modest. An objective analysis shows that the tax increase is unabashedly outrageous when compared to neighboring communities.

Tax rates, schmax rates. What counts is the average dollar amount that the residents pay or, more precisely, the tax levy per capita.

I compare Oak Park to our contiguous neighbors, River Forest, Forest Park, Elmwood Park, and Berwyn. Who cares about Park Ridge, Lake Forest, or for that matter Laredo or Tuscaloosa? Our neighbors are the ones who utilize our facilities. It is those communities which we subsidize with our high taxes.

I thank those various communities for providing their tax levy data.

It is instructive to graph the tax levy per capita as a function of population. We graph the data for Oak Park and for our neighbors. Every institution of government has its fixed cost, insurance coverage and upper level management salaries, for examples. The efficiency of a government is demonstrated by how it controls its marginal costs, the additional costs per each additional resident. (Similar analysis, of course, applies to commercial entities.) Accordingly, in the first graph, which excludes the data for Oak Park, we find that the tax levy per capita decreases steeply with population, as it should. Fitting a straight line indicates that the fixed cost is about $141 per resident.

Note that these communities vary widely in their demographics and their philosophy in delivering recreation. They range from very wealthy to poor communities, from small to moderately large, and from predominantly European in origin to racially and ethnically mixed. Some have one park district, some have two, and some have a parks and recreation department which is part of the village government. Yet, the trend is overwhelmingly clear: The larger the population, the smaller the tax levy per capita. In particular, in Berwyn, a village with a population about equal to that of Oak Park, the tax levy per capita is $38.

In the second graph, data for Oak Park are added. As can be seen, the current tax levy per capita for the Oak Park Park District is far above the trend for our neighbors. This indicates that the Oak Park Park District does not obtain a significant decrease in tax levy per capita with population.

To the contrary, the graph indicates a gross inefficiency. The tax levy per capita at the current taxing level is about $73 per capita, twice that of Berwyn. If Oak Park followed the trend of its neighbors, the taxing level would be only $30 per capita. We are already paying at a level 150% higher than efficiencies would indicate. Worse, if the tax-increase referendum passes, Oak Park would be at a level of $127 per capita, a tax levy per capita representative of a community the size of River Forest, one-fifth the population of Oak Park. We essentially achieve no economies of scale.

The major cause for this inefficiency is an inability or unwillingness to manage marginal costs. For one hypothetical example, if 30 additional kids enroll for playtime at a given playground, three additional staff members might be hired instead of only one. This level of inefficiency, however, clearly also indicates that our fixed costs are exorbitant compared to our neighbors. For example, our spacious administration building is a luxury for which the taxpayers should not pay.

Many means exists to reduce the costs of our park district. Here are a few examples. Stopping the use if the industrial capacity air conditioning units installed several years ago would reduce the annual electric bill by many thousands of dollars. As it is, they run evenings and Sundays throughout the summer. Also, the district could stop using the lawn sprinklers that irrigate the marsh lands known as Lindberg Park. The grasses have adapted decades ago to the drought-flood cycle, and no reason ever existed to install a sprinkler system. The landscapers could cut the grass every other week rather than weekly. These are soccer fields, not putting greens. The administration could move out of their offices on Madison, that building sold to private interests, generating property and sales taxes, and the administrators could move into one of the playgrounds. Use of Stevenson for example would create a presence there that would have the additional benefit of reducing the need of costly security for the skate park. The district could impose a hiring freeze. In the last year, two positions became vacant from attrition. Instead of passing the savings on to the taxpayers, the board created a new middle-management position of recreation director, the first in the 100-year history of the park district/recreation department.

Many means exists to reduce the costs of our park district and to generate additional non-tax revenue. Here are a few examples. Stopping the use if the industrial capacity air conditioning units installed several years ago would reduce the electric bill by many thousands. As it is, they run evenings and Sundays throughout the summer. Also, the district could stop using the lawn sprinklers that irrigate the marsh lands known as Lindberg Park. The grasses have adapted decades ago to the drought-flood cycle, and no reason ever existed to install a sprinkler system. The landscapers could cut the grass every other week rather than weekly. These are soccer fields, not putting greens. The administration could move out of their offices on Madison, that building sold to private interests, generating property and sales taxes, and the administrators could move into one of the playgrounds. Use of Stevenson for example would create a presence there that would have the additional benefit of reducing the need of costly security for the skate park. The district could impose a hiring freeze. In the last year, two positions became vacant from attrition. Instead of passing the savings on to the taxpayers, the board created a new middle-management position of recreation director, the first in the 100-year history of the park district/recreation department.

I have discovered numerous such means of reducing cost and generating additional revenue, amounting to $1.3 million to $1.5 million each year. Diverting these savings for several years to building repair would allow restoration of the playgrounds buildings. After that, the savings could be passed on to the taxpayers as tax relief. These 16 cost reduction and revenue generation measures � other examples include increased employee benefits self-pay and a streamlining of brochure printing/mailing -- are discussed in detail in this web site.

Put no credence in "it's only $0.25 more per $100 assessment," or "it's only a digital camera a year," or "it's only 2% of our tax bill," or other diversionary, misleading, emotional, fallacious arguments. The tax-increase referendum for which you are being asked to vote on April 5 is a 131% tax increase, more than double the present amount you currently pay to the park district. We are already paying an amount grossly inconsistent with our neighbors.

The park district has failed to practice financial efficiency, and hundreds of thousands of dollars can be saved. Compare the two graphs. Examine the table of savings and revenue sources. Then vote NO on April 5 to the tax-increase based on rationality, not propaganda.

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