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Parks director says 5.1% cut would reduce seasonal staff, slow maintenance and invasive-species work
Summary
Parks Director Baron told the Budget and Finance Committee that a 5.1% reduction (about $634,000) would reduce seasonal hires, delay mowing and mulching, and constrain invasive‑species and trail work; he also described pilot plans to use geofenced cell-data to estimate park visitation.
Parks Director Baron outlined how proposed reductions would affect maintenance and conservation across the city’s park system and described new data and asset‑management investments intended to improve decision making.
Baron summarized Parks’ portfolio and staffing, noting the department manages roughly 5,000 acres of parkland (about 3,800 acres of forest) and an urban‑forest program that handles roughly 80,000 street trees. On the effect of the proposed 5.1% general‑fund reduction he said: "It's equivalent to $634,000 ... there's no way to sugarcoat it." He said the likely operational consequences include hiring fewer seasonal staff, fewer mulching and mowing cycles, and slower responses to customer service requests.
Baron also described technology pilots: the department is finalizing a work‑order system to better track maintenance and is evaluating a geofencing/cell‑data vendor that, in a demonstration, produced visitor estimates for park sites. He cited an example the vendor supplied from 2024 geofencing and said the tool could help Parks determine when and where people use facilities and how that should shape maintenance and volunteer deployments.
On conservation, Baron said Parks currently has three natural‑resource specialists responsible for forest stewardship and that, even before reductions, that staffing level is inadequate given the acreage; with cuts the department would struggle to hire seasonal staff that support volunteer events and reforestation efforts. He said the department will return with additional metrics and data to inform council decisions.
The committee asked follow‑up questions about acres treated for invasive species, procurement challenges and coordination with other departments; Baron offered to provide additional metrics (acres cleared, volunteer and staff hours) in a future update.
