County to review trust fund for parks

During her State of the County address Board of Supervisors chair Dianne Jacob called for a sustainable endowment fund to provide a continuing source of revenue to operate and maintain new parks as well as existing ones. A preliminary proposal for maintenance options was approved March 22.

The supervisors' 4-1 vote, with Bill Horn opposed, directed the county's Chief Administrative Officer to review existing policies and ordinances related to developing and maintaining county parks and facilities and to return to the board within 180 days with recommendations to encourage new park development, to create alternative models for managing and operating new and existing parks, and to identify any improvements to streamline the process for developing new parks.

The portion of the supervisors' action which caused concern was the approval to authorize the county's Auditor and Controller to establish a "Sustainable County Parks and Recreation Trust Fund" and to direct the Chief Administrative Officer to appropriate $15 million into the county's 2017-18 budget and to replenish the fund each fiscal year with available fund balance. That trust fund would be used to fill funding gaps to maintain new and existing parks and facilities and to address short-term operational challenges.

The March 22 action also directed the Chief Administrative Officer to establish guidelines for using future appropriations from the trust fund based on the county's Department of Parks and Recreation current revenue sources for operations and maintenance and five-year capital project forecasts.

"The county park system is a beauty, and we're all very proud of it," Jacob said. "Parks and recreational opportunities are important to a healthy, safe, and thriving community. We also need to make sure the county lives up to its promise to build and maintain our parks."

"The action before us today will help us build on our success," said Supervisor Greg Cox.

Although the concept of allocating funding for a one-time endowment might not have drawn opposition from the other county supervisors, the concept of using fund balance for annual maintenance conflicts with the supervisors' philosophy of spending one-time revenues for one-time projects rather than for ongoing programs.

"I don't like this automatic replenishing," Horn said.

"There's no source of ongoing money," said Supervisor Ron Roberts. "You don't automatically have money next year."

"I understand the role of parks," said Horn. "They're a worthy cause. I don't want to build parks if we don't have adequate maintenance funding."

"Any time you're adding something new, it is our responsibility to make sure it's adequately maintained," said Supervisor Kristin Gaspar. "We shouldn't move forward with a park project if we don't have the ability to maintain it."

"If the fund balance is there, we'll be able to do this," Roberts said. "You don't know if you're going to have a fund balance."

Jacob concurred that one-time revenues should not be used for annual expenses. "We don't want to go back to the old days where one-time money was spent on ongoing expenses," she said.

"I just want to see this as subject to an annual review," Roberts said.

The supervisors would likely be supportive of increasing annual maintenance funding for parks through general fund revenue. "Why don't you just put the money in the budget?" Roberts said.

"That would be fine," Jacob said. "I just want to get the job done."