FY 2023 Borough Budget Consultations Manhattan - Department of Parks and Recreation Meeting Date: 9/23/2021 AGENDA ITEM 1: General Agency Funding Discussion The purpose of holding the Borough Budget Consultations is to provide Community Boards with important information to assist in drafting their statement of District Needs and Budget Priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. As you know, Community Board Members are volunteers who may not be familiar with the budget process and how agencies’ programs are funded. At the same time, Community Board members are very knowledgeable about local service needs. This year’s Manhattan agendas have three sections: I. Agencies previously faced unprecedented cuts and new funding requirements due to COVID 19. The Federal Government recently provided relief funds to states and municipalities as part of COVID relief stimulus. 1. What programs are restored by this funding for the current fiscal year and what further changes are planned for FY 23 when an estimated $4 billion budget gap reemerges? 2. What changes in federal funding have been instituted for FY 22? Will those changes continue into FY 23? What portion or percentage of the FY 21 and FY 22 budgets consisted of non-recurring federal funding? 3. What is the overall budget increase or decrease for FY 22 adopted budget compared to FY21 budget? Does the Agency anticipate a budget shortfall for FY 22, FY 23 or further out years after the non-recurring federal funding has been exhausted? AGENCY RESPONSE: 1. The restored programs include the following:          $30M in FY 22 and FY 23 to restore seasonal staff budget for maintenance and operations workers citywide $10M to restore 100 City Park Workers and 50 Gardener staff lines $3M to restore Parks Opportunity Program and provide a pathway to full-time employment $15M to restore critical parks forestry contracts for tree pruning, stump removal, sidewalk repair and invasive species control $4M to reinvest in Recreation programming-to restore the Parks Equity Initiative and support park stewardship organizations citywide $3M to restore the 50 Urban Park Ranger positions created in the FY 20 budget $6M to restore 80 Parks Enforcement Patrol positions created in the FY 20 budget $3.4M to restore 15 Greenthumb staff and expand access to plant materials, resources and tools for community gardeners citywide $4.5M to continue conserving and caring for our natural forests and begin critical improvements for our City’s wetlands and trail networks In terms of future changes for FY 23, if this funding isn’t continued, we will need to scale back and consolidate our operations and programming as we had to do in FY 21. 2. The biggest one is the City Cleanup Corps program, for which we received $9.2M in FY 21 and $42.6M in FY 22. This funding drops out of the budget in FY 23. In FY 21 the percentage of our budget consisting of non-recurring federal funding was 0%; in FY 22 it was about 7%. 3. Our budget went from $503M to $619M. We do not anticipate any potential shortfalls in FY 22, FY 23 or beyond related to the federal funding, except possibly for the CCC funding, which as stated above has only been provided for FY 22. II. Then, the agenda continues with Community Boards asking about program funding. 1. What programs will see a significant increase or decrease in funding? To what extent, if any, is the increase or decrease in funding related to non-recurring federal funding allocations? 2. Which programs will be new or eliminated entirely? 3. What are your benchmarks for new and existing programs and what are your benchmarks/key performance indicators for measuring success? 4. What are your priorities, operational goals, and capital goals for FY22 and projected priorities, operational goals, and capital goals for FY23? 5. What expense or capital needs would Parks recommend or encourage Community Boards advocate be funded or expanded? AGENCY RESPONSE: 1. See #1 above for programs that received a significant increase in funding. The City Cleanup Corps, as noted above, received $42M in non-recurring federal funding. 2. Again, the City Cleanup Corps is a new program and could be eliminated in FY 23. 3. As with all City agencies, Parks benchmarks are reported as part of the Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), which can be found here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/operations/performance/mmr.page 4. The Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) maintains and cares for a more than 1,900 parks,