Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (1)
Budget shortfall affects Park Authority
Since last year, the Fairfax County Park Authority has been streamlining operations, working with a 4-percent agency-wide cut in personnel services that have left important staff positions at some facilities vacant.
Budgetary concerns have accounted for wide-ranging cuts countywide, and county parks have been working with smaller staff and fewer resources while attempting to accomplish mounting piles of work.
The revised fiscal 2008 Park Authority budget is $24.2 million. The proposed budget for fiscal 2009 is about $24 million, almost $200,000 less than last year's revised budget.
Part-time hours at all Park Authority facilities have been cut and, while warm weather approaches, the threat of busier parks with smaller staffs looms.
Last year, the park authority, like all county agencies, took a 4-percent cut overall, which County Executive Anthony Griffin recommended in anticipation of the bad budget picture for FY 2009.
When the reduction was increased from 2 percent to 4 percent in November, Griffin wrote staff in an e-mail, “I am very aware that this additional reduction will be difficult and will likely result in a negative impact to your agency.”
According to Park Authority spokeswoman Judy Pedersen, cuts have already resulted in only hiring “critical positions, as well as limiting overtime, compensatory time and scaling back the utilization of limited term personnel.”
Also hit hard will be the “number of trips, tours and camps,” which will all be reduced, Pedersen said in an e-mail.
Maintenance projects have been limited to emergency-only cases. And training for staffers has been limited to “mandatory certification or recertification programs, except where free training is available,” Pedersen said.
Overtime hours were eliminated, and employees have been told that some vacant staff positions will not be filled anytime soon, according to park authority staffers The Times spoke to.
Stories such as these about cutbacks in county services make my blood boil when I recall hearing school board members say they cannot live within the budget they have been asked to respect.
I am thoroughly tired of more than half of my property taxes going to the needs of only 30 percent of the households in the county that have children in the public schools.
I think it is about time that the rest of us tell the school board -- enough is enough. You are not the only game in town.
If it were my vote: Parks and Rec would get a boost in funding, not the voracious school system.
Posted by editorbev
Report Offensive Content
You must be logged in to post a comment.