What Happened?
Local governments are experimenting with different public-private partnership models to help maintain parks departments amid tightened budgets and fiscal challenges. Many state and local governments cannot spare the money from other departments such as education or healthcare to support parks, and therefore require them to become self-sufficient.
The Goal
The National Park Service reported a total of $18.5 billion in unfunded demands in parks and recreation departments nationwide in 2010, while the National Trust for Historic Preservation revealed more than 50 percent of state parks are “at-risk” with more budget cuts pending in the future.
The Reason Foundation argues that rather than finding a place for park maintenance costs in the state and local budgets, officials should be creating collaborative relationships with nonprofits and private entities to implement a parks business model for sustainability.
Some state parks feature private company installations within the grounds that help generate revenue such as concession stands and gift shops. If parks management were to extend those relationships to accommodate more of the operational tasks and costs, access to capital may be easier to come by.
How It Works
The Reason Foundation and The Buckeye Institute drafted a report outlining a model parks departments could mimic when teaming up with the private sector. The design calls for:
- State parks to have full control over:
- Land ownership
- Strategy, planning, park character, facilities
- State parks and private entities would split control over:
- Environmental protection
- Recreation
- Maintenance and investment
- State parks would take over the responsibilities of:
- Science and rules-making of environmental protection
- A portion of the education of environmental protection
- Oversight and fee approval of recreation
- Planning and some capital investment of maintenance and investment
- Private sector entities would assume oversight of
- Mitigation and compliance of environmental protection
- A portion of the education of environmental protection
- Operations, staffing and customer service for recreation
- Routine maintenance of the grounds and some capital investment of maintenance
With public-private partnerships, state parks could enjoy numerous benefits while addressing the rising cost of maintaining recreational grounds. Between 1978 and 2006, the total amount state parks have spent on operations has jumped from $1.25 billion to nearly $3.25 billion, while the cost of admission has increased less than $4 in the same time frame.
If state parks embark on public-private partnerships with a more sustainable business model, departments will:
- Become self-sufficient in cost of operations
- Make better use of staff and processes
- Present a higher quality offering to the public
- Improve accountability
Chicago Plan
The Chicago Park District has a five-year plan for its parks and recreation department that involves increased collaboration between the local government and private entities. The city’s capital improvement plan has four main components:
- Increase partnerships with the private sector to improve access to capital beyond state budget allocations
- Assume a leadership role in park development, innovation and maintenance with green technologies
- Preserve existing infrastructure and assets for long-term sustainability
- Collect feedback from the public using the parks to ensure all developments and investments are in line with demographic interests
Chicago has numerous projects in the works leveraging public and private investments including energy management programs, new green spaces and connecting residential spaces to parks and green space.
Privatization of Parks
Gov1 has followed the privatization trend of parks across the country, many saving municipalities millions of dollars.