Chapter 4 action plan updatedCHAPTER 4
MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
Chapter 4 – Administration and Management Recommendations Page 4 - 1
CHAPTER 4 – MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
Contents:
Introduction
Staffing Requirements
Impact Fees
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 STAFFING
REQUIREMENTS
This chapter covers several operational issues related to
improving services. This includes analysis and
recommendations for staffing and a review of the park impact fee
structure.
Currently, the Parks and Recreation Department maintains
about 91.15 acres of developed parkland, 17.52 acres of other
Parks Department maintained land. That totals 108.67 acres.
The Parks Department also does some maintenance on
118.36 acres of new undeveloped parkland.
While it is difficult to break out the cost of park maintenance
only, the current cost is about $440,219.00, which excludes the
salary of the Parks and Recreation Director.
If the $440,219.00 was divided by 108.67 acres, the annual
cost per acre to maintain the park system is about $4,064.00
per acre. This amount is comparable to other communities we
have studied.
Meridian Comprehensive Parks and Recreation System Plan 2003
Chapter 4 – Administration and Management Recommendations Page 4 - 2
As a goal, the Maintenance Division should seek a
maintenance budget that reflects a cost of approximately
$5,000 per maintained acre.
Currently the Maintenance Division consists of the following
positions:
Table 4-1
Current Park Maintenance Staff
City of Meridian
Maintenance Level Full-time Seasonal
Superintendent 1
Full-Time Employees 4
7 month employees 2
4 month employees 1
Total equivalent full-time employees (FTE’s): 5.70
This amounts to an existing ratio of 18.38 acres per
maintenance employee. Using the $5,000 per acre as the
target amount to pay for park maintenance, the recommended
ratio is 18 acres per employee. This is illustrated below.
Current ratio of acres per employee 18.38
Recommended ratio of acres per employee 18.00
This standard will require developing parks that are easy to
maintain and using equipment that makes maintenance more
efficient. The City should be able to maintain its parks at a
quality level with eighteen acres per employee.
The number of future employees will be based on how fast the
park system is developed. However, using the current ratio of
park land to population and applying to the growth forecasts,
the following maintenance staff needs are forecasted.
Current park maintenance staff 5.7 FTE’s
Year 2003 needs 5.7 FTE’s
Year 2004 needs 6.7 FTE’s
Year 2010 needs 12.35 FTE’s
Meridian Comprehensive Parks and Recreation System Plan 2003
Chapter 4 – Administration and Management Recommendations Page 4 - 3
4.3 IMPACT FEES Impact fees are development fees charged to new homes built
in Meridian. As a rule, they are charged at the time of securing
the building permit. While the developer or builder pays this
fee, it is generally passed on to the homebuyer through the
cost of the house purchase. In theory, park impact fees are
intended to pay for the cost of all new park land acquisitions
and development. As a practical point, the fee rate imposed by
a City seldom reflects the true costs, which means existing
residents must share the cost through property taxes.
The current impact fee rate for parks is $667.39 per single
family home and $607.14 per multi-family unit. It is our
contention that this rate does not reflect the true cost of
developing the Park System of Meridian for the population
growth.
The action required to develop the Park System are
summarized in Table 5.3 and are estimated to be
approximately $41,997,000. Deducted from this amount
should be $4.5 million for the cost of the community center.
The total new growth between the year 2000 and 2020 is
forecasted at 37,800 persons, which reflects about 13,500 new
households. If the number of new households is divided by the
cost to build the Park System, it amounts to $1,500 per
household.