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Park lovers urge mayor to restore funding as numbers decline

Pabio October 28, 2024

Parks advocates are urging Mayor Eric Adams to lift the hiring freeze and restore hundreds of essential jobs to the city’s parks department, which has seen its budget steadily cut over the past decade.

On Monday, Play Fair for Parks — an advocacy coalition led by New Yorkers for Parks, the League of Conservation Voters and the City Workers Union District Council 37 — will send a letter to the mayor demanding more money for parks as part of the city’s annual amendment. budget that arrives every November.

Play Fair also includes dozens of local groups run by volunteers who maintain parks around the city.

“NYC Parks was the only city agency to face a significant budget reduction this year,” said the letter shared with THE CITY. “Budget cuts have resulted in the loss of nearly 800 staff lines and the cancellation of critical programs, compounding decades of chronic underfunding and leaving the agency at breaking point. »

The coalition specifically calls for the restoration of $62 million and an end to the hiring freeze that has left many Parks Department initiatives understaffed.

“NYC Parks is operating with nearly 1,000 fewer employees than last year, causing severe service interruptions and inhibiting the agency’s ability to maintain lawns, remove trash, care for trees and to ensure the maintenance our parks need,” the letter reads. Remarks.

Restoring that money could allow the agency to hire 100 community coordinators to staff recreation centers, 50 gardeners, 50 parks and recreation administrative managers and 50 exterminators, among other positions, according to the coalition.

“The administration’s new leadership has an opportunity to correct this trajectory in November and begin building the parks that New Yorkers have been promised and deserve,” Adam Ganser, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, told THE CITY .

The group is also asking for $1 million for the city to develop its urban forest plan, which aims to achieve 30 percent forest cover over the next several decades.

The Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget will issue changes to the city’s budget sometime in November; last year it came out in the middle of the month. At the time, Adams asked every city agency to identify ways to reduce their budgets – and the OMB instituted a hiring freeze as part of what the mayor’s team dubbed the Agenda to Eliminate Labor. ‘gap, or PEG.

These budget cuts initially killed a parks department work body program managed in conjunction with the Human Resources Administration to be removed, but it was reinstated months later.

Councilor Justin Brannan, a Brooklyn Democrat who heads the finance committee, published on social networks that the a windfall estimated at $200 million Mets and Yankees playoff games are expected to return to city parks.

“I think New Yorkers need positive government news from City Hall and what better way to do that than by fully funding our incredible public parks from Van Cortlandt to Tottenville Shore and creating more good union jobs!” he told THE CITY in an email.

Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, a Queens Democrat who chairs the parks committee, said Adams “has targeted our New York parks for some of his deepest budget cuts this year, and our families have seen the consequences.” unfortunate results.

He called for more money to be reinvested in the agency to hire badly needed staff, he said.

“We will also ensure that parks staff are not overburdened and have the support they deserve. And New Yorkers can benefit from the safe, clean, resilient parks system they deserve,” he said in a statement.

An analysis by THE CITY earlier this year found that the parks department’s share of the city’s overall budget has declined steadily since Adams became mayor.

The city’s overall budget is more than $112 billion, and the Parks Department’s share is about $618 million, or just 0.55 percent of the budget.

Sources within the agency said it was staff cuts that hurt staff the most, even though Adams invested in capital projects like a $160 million renovation of Brownsville Recreation Center in Brooklyn And $92 million for Mary Cali Dalton Recreation Center on Staten Island.

“We can barely staff the ones we have,” said one insider.

A Parks Department spokeswoman, Meghan Lalor, said the agency is “committed to making our parks greener, cleaner and safer” and highlighted gains in the executive budget, including money for more maintenance workers in the parks.

“Under this administration, we have made significant investments to improve our parks and keep them safe and clean, including increasing the number of full-time staff, which will allow us to extend our cleaning program into the evening” , she said in a press release. .

Parks Ministry sources, however, said there was still not enough staff for new initiatives and increased use of city parks and recreation centers.

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