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How Much Does Chapel Hill Spend on Parks and Recreation?
A perspective from Terri Buckner
One of the hotly debated issues in this year’s Mayor and Council race is the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation budget. With all the new growth in town, Adam Searing and his slate of candidates say the budget is significantly underfunded and they have shared details produced by Town staff to support their argument. The two incumbent candidates say they are wrong, and their dark money endorsers have written extensively in support of their claim. So which group is right?
To analyze an issue like this, you must understand budgets. There are two levels of budgets. First is the Operating Budget. This is the day-to-day funding to keep kid sports, the climbing wall, dog parks, etc. running and clean. Staffing is listed separately within the Operating Budget. The other is the Capital Improvement Budget (CIP) that pays for maintenance, new construction, planning, and other one-time, large cost expenses. Chapel Hill breaks their CIP budget into the current year (called PayGo) and future years (15 years planning cycle).
For the past 5 years, the Operating Budget for Parks and Recreation has been on the decline. Not a large decline but a fairly consistent 1-2% cut each year. The Staff Budget has increased over that time, but the number of staff has remained stable since 2019 when 4 positions were eliminated.
The PayGo budget (CIP) covers small capital projects using General Funds. In 2022-2023 when Town staff were doing their analysis to share with the Manager and elected officials, the $170K PayGo budget (section named Parks and Other Public Facilities in the blue border) included $50K for greenway maintenance, $50K for playground maintenance, $20K for cemetery beautification, and $50K for small parks improvements. The US Census gave the town population for that year as 62,098. P&R staff must have included some additional funding to get to the $4/resident figure that was shared with the Manager and elected officials. That report has not been made public, and my efforts to acquire it have been ignored.
The 2023-2024 PayGo budget (unpublished at this time) uses the same funding priorities as 2022-2023 but adds $971M projected to come from the newly adopted Penny for Parks fund. “As part of the approved 2023-24 operating budget, the Town Council established a Penny for Parks Fund which will provide $971,000 for P&R’s Capital Improvement Project budget to support maintenance and expansion of our parks and facilities in the future.”
Chapel Hill is also investing a portion of the American Rescue Plan (one-time funding) for several P&R design and planning projects and they received a grant for planning new greenways. Where the funding to build any of the planned/designed projects will come from is undetermined.
The 2023-2024 PayGo budget is where the $17/resident figure comes from. Another group estimated ~$48/resident in spending but that estimate used PayGo + Operating + one time funding so it isn’t an apples to apples comparison.
Thanks to the attention directed at the previously underfunded P&R program over the past 5+ years, the per resident funding has jumped from less than $4/resident in 2022/23 to $17/resident for this coming year. But for those who are following this issue, there is still a $25M deferred maintenance deficit and the $1M generated by Penny for Parks is not going to resolve that situation anytime soon, let alone fund new projects planned using the ARPA funds.
To summarize, there have been some defamatory accusations thrown out about the $4/resident claim, but that figure came from Town staff. It was based on the 2022-2023 PayGo budget while the counterclaim uses the 2023-2024 budget with the newly adopted Pennies for Parks fund. Why Town staff chose to use only the PayGo budget to calculate per resident funding instead of PayGo + Operating is a mystery, and the staff person who could answer that question won’t answer the phone.
The good news is that the future does look a little brighter, but there is still a large backlog of unfunded capital needs across all town departments. P&R will have to compete against those other deferred maintenance deficits and serious Town needs like a new police station.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
Thank you, Terri, for sifting through the facts, and writing an enlightening article on how the town has failed to maintain, let alone provide much of anything new, for Parks and Rec facilities for years. It seems like the current Council has jumped at out of town expensive consultants’ ill-conceived plans for our town rather than listening to our resident’s and town facilities’ needs. That is why I am voting for a New Vision with New Leadership this election, with Adam Searing for Mayor, and David Adams, Breckany Eckhardt, Renuka Soll, and Elizabeth Sharp for Council!
Diane Willis
There are a number of factual errors in this piece, and it’s simply not true to state that the current council has not put any funding into parks and rec.
1. Town Council jump-started a parks renewal by allocating almost half of the $10.66 million in American Rescue Program Act funding to parks and greenways.
This provided funding for 11 parks projects – including a new inclusive playground at the Community Center, renovation of our skatepark, and resurfacing of turf fields. It also includes design for two new greenway extensions (Bolin Creek and East Morgan Creek), which sets the town up to apply for even more federal dollars for engineering and construction costs.
2. Council passed the new Penny for Parks program, a dedicated funding stream for capital projects.
The new annual fund, which currently equals $971,000, went into effect last July. It is also included as a recurring funding stream in the five-year budget plan. This new funding provides more predictability for our Parks & Rec staff and the resources they need to build the park system we want.
3. Council just funded a new Parks Master Plan so the town can better compete for outside grant monies and plan for future bonds.
That’s an important first step for evaluating future bond opportunities and making Chapel Hill competitive for state and federal grant money.
4. TCouncil recently asked for (and received) a feasibility study on the location of a splash pad. That’s a necessary step that is needed before funding can be obtained. This was done after a resident petitioned. In response, Council created a working group, asked for and received the feasibility study, and has moved the process along.
Melody, I suggest you go directly the town and let them explain it to you since all you want to do is argue with me and say you’re right and they are wrong.
Yes, thank you Terri for this cogent analysis, and thank you Renuka for your tireless advocacy that has caused Chapel Hill government to finally start making parks and rec a priority.
Terri, thanks for this thoughtful article and the legwork it must have taken.
My understanding is that part of the context here is that several candidates were misleadingly claiming that only $4 per person is spent on parks in Chapel Hill. This is misleading both because spending has gone up significantly since then, and because it does not count all funding sources (or operating expenses, as you point out). And of course, the fact that a number was used in a town proceeding to mean one thing doesn’t mean it can’t be misleading to use that number in another context to mean something else. I’m glad people pointed out the mistake, and that it’s lead to thoughtful, more nuanced discussion like this article. (And Melody’s reply – I get that she took a confrontational tone toward you which would be annoying, but I found her comment very thoughtful and informative as well.)
I don’t have a strong view on the broader question of whether the current funding situation should be concerning, or whether we should expect enough grants, etc. to materialize. But either way, I appreciate the work.