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Parks director seeks higher pay for year-round part-time staff, funds for dredging and equipment
Summary
Parks staff asked the committee to raise year-round part-time pay toward 80% of full-time hourly rate, requested funds for a dredging project at Fowler Park, overtime funding of about $7,500 and equipment purchases while trimming other capital lines.
The county parks presenter told the budget committee that the department wants to raise compensation for part-time, year-round employees and requested targeted increases and decreases in operating and capital lines for 2026.
Parks staff said part-time year-round employees perform many of the same duties as full-time staff and are difficult to recruit at the current hourly rate; the presenter suggested raising those positions to about 80% of the full-time hourly rate and gave a concrete example: a target of roughly $19.35 per hour to replace current $14—17 ranges. The presenter distinguished seasonal summer-only hires (hard to recruit) from part-time year-round positions, which are trained and valuable to operations.
On specific budget lines, parks staff asked for a $5,000 increase in gasoline, a $50,000 liability estimate, a $6,000 increase in equipment rental tied to a Fowler Park dredging effort, and a $6,000 increase to nonreverting special events revenue estimates. Parks requested $76,512 less in new equipment versus last year (keeping enough to acquire 1 front-deck mower) and estimated a parks nonreverting projects total of roughly $178,000.
Staff also asked for an overtime budget of about $7,500 to cover seasonal events such as Pioneer Days and to reduce reliance on comp time, which parks staff said strains small crews (about two full-time maintenance staff per park). The department described recent successes (increased reservation/card revenue to about $300,000 annually from historic averages around $130—40,000) and noted turnover in office staff and a new natural resource programmer.
Committee members asked detail questions about equipment and encumbrances and were shown that the parks request includes both reductions and increases across lines to prioritize maintenance and one-time projects.
