Our Parks Division’s staffing ranges have skilled a five-year decline, with this yr being the bottom second solely to drastic cuts in FY21, on the pandemic’s onset. The $25 million funds cuts announced in November inexplicably focused the traditionally strapped company, slashing its funds by 5% and eliminating key packages geared toward swim security, upkeep of our metropolis’s pure areas and crime discount.
Now, the Mayor’s preliminary budget for the following fiscal yr proposes an extra $55 million discount in funding and a ensuing headcount that’s at historic lows. A lower of this magnitude is a devastating blow for an company struggling to outlive on a minuscule funds as a consequence of a long time of underinvestment. These cuts run deeper towards the backdrop of Mayor Adams’ unfulfilled guarantees, having vowed to dedicate 1% of the Metropolis’s funds to the Parks Division on a number of events.
On paper, New York Metropolis boasts an enviable parks system. Amongst the skyscrapers and bustling streets are 1,942 parks, over 1,000 playgrounds, 800 athletic fields, 550 tennis courts, 60 public swimming pools, 30 recreation facilities, 14 miles of seashores, acres of pure areas and different neighborhood property unfold throughout 5 boroughs – all managed by our Parks Division.
Nevertheless, actuality tells a bleaker story. The company is funded and managed with the identical methods it employed when town neared chapter within the Seventies. Throughout this time, funding for parks was drastically reduced and by no means absolutely recovered. Earlier than the financial downturn, the Metropolis would allocate 1.4% of its funds to Parks funding, supporting a workforce of 11,000 workers to successfully function and keep its strong inexperienced infrastructure, interact with communities and hold parks secure.
Fifty years later, the Parks Division receives solely 0.5% of the Metropolis’s funds, with employees ranges creeping in the direction of 7,000. Main cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles additionally confronted comparable monetary crises, however not like New York, their parks techniques have rebounded. Why? As a result of these cities acknowledged parks as important civic property that handle problems with fairness, public well being, local weather mitigation and financial improvement. These cities allocate between 2.9% and 5.3% of their respective budgets to parks funding – which interprets to extra spending per capita and per acre when in comparison with New York Metropolis, and exemplifies the stark distinction to the austerity mindset plaguing our Parks Division.
That is essentially an fairness concern. For much too lengthy, New York’s low-income communities, disproportionately represented by racial and ethnic minority teams, have borne the brunt of the Metropolis’s neglect. Whereas a handful of communities have benefited enormously from conservancies that fund, assist and look after particular parks, these few organizations don’t symbolize a scalable mannequin for town’s 1,700+ parks. Nor ought to they. With out applicable Metropolis funding, it’s the parks, swimming pools and recreation facilities in lower-income neighborhoods which can be most harmed. That is unacceptable when New Yorkers are coming to our Metropolis’s parks and open areas in droves.
Our Parks system is in disaster. Public funding for public areas isn’t a luxurious however a necessity – an funding within the well being, happiness, and prosperity of our metropolis. With out it, communities will proceed to grapple with unsafe areas, unmaintained greenery, deteriorating infrastructure, and unsanitary and even hazardous circumstances.
Adequately funding our metropolis’s parks system is fully possible, and properly inside the Mayor’s energy to handle. Whereas Mayor Adams holds the Parks system hostage by tying its funding to the asylum seeker crisis, we are able to’t lose sight of the small monetary scale right here. Parks funding is dwarfed by different main metropolis businesses, and represents a tiny fraction of town’s general funds – at present proposed to be simply $583 million out of a complete $110 billion – primarily lint within the administration’s pocket.
Whereas the sector celebrates the invaluable contributions of tens of hundreds of volunteers working tirelessly to take care of their parks, and investigates various funding avenues, we are able to’t take our eyes off the ball. Solely public funding can repair this drawback, and we’ll proceed to stress the administration to ship this funding. The Mayor can begin by fulfilling the Play Honest for Parks coalition’s demand for 1,000 extra Parks staff to be able to restore company staffing ranges to pre-COVID ranges.
With the Parks Preliminary Funds Listening to approaching, New Yorkers can play a vital position in calling on the administration to meaningfully fund our parks by signing the 1% for Parks petition, spearheaded by NYC Parks advocates.
It’s time to disrupt this harmful cycle of underfunding and decide to constructing a brighter, greener and equitable future for all New Yorkers.
Adam Ganser is government director of New Yorkers for Parks. Julie Tighe is president of the New York League of Conservation Voters.
