Conflict between board members and the director about their proper roles and authorities is hardly something new. Usually called policy vs. administration, it has been almost an automatic topic on the programs for annual park and recreation conferences in Illinois at least since my first one in 1959. Here is a fresh way to look at the subject, a way that can make the board job more meaningful.

Thirty-five years ago the board was the director in most park districts in Illinois. Board members ran the districts by having committee chairs be the executives for their parts of the operation. The chair of the recreation committee hired a part-time, rarely full-time, recreation director—as often as not a gym teacher from the junior high—and together they ran the recreation activities. The chair of the buildings and grounds committee hired a farmer's son and they kept the parks in shape. The chair of the finance committee hired ... and so on.

As more and more districts hired people qualified for—or at least given the responsibility for—general executive or management duties, the topic of policy versus administration was a hot one.

On more than one occasion over the past thirty-plus years I was a conference speaker. On more than one occasion I said generally the following: The board can always claim without argument two things for which it is responsible. It's responsible for the budget, and it's responsible for public relations. The board is fully responsible for the budget—for setting the total amount and for deciding how that total is to be split among all the things it legally can be spent on—as a matter of law. The board is responsible for public relations—with that term having its original meaning of all relations with the public, not just publicity—as a matter of getting re-elected.

There is not a single decision that can't be placed in one of those categories. All the books and the articles and the speakers say the board should be involved in policy and the executive should be involved in administration. But the law and self-preservation say. in effect, that budget and public relations are policy. So if it wants to, the board can be involved in the details of decision-making on anything—absolutely anything and everything.

Can be involved. That doesn't mean should be involved.

Because there is broad policy, and there is detailed policy. There is policy directed to the real goals of the district, and there is policy directed to the nitty gritty of daily operating of the district. And there is administration that isn't really policy at all— although it could be called that according to the definitions stated above about budget and public relations. Speakers like me (and professionals too) regularly exhorted our colleagues (or their board member bosses) to try to be broad policy makers and to keep their hands out of the little stuff and the administration of the district. Probably it had no effect. And there were new board members every two years, so the exhortation was repeated with regularity.

Through time, trained directors became the norm. [Now they even have initials after their names.] They were taught to have lists of goals. And lists of objectives. And to have whole books of policies. And books, too, of procedures.

And the park districts ran smoothly. Boards dutifully ratified goals proposed by the director. Doctored them a little. but approved them much as they came from the textbooks. And the same for the policies and procedures, which didn't come from textbooks so much as from friends at other park districts.

And the regular meetings of the park board ran the same as they always did. One, maybe two, board members studied the check register. After reading the check register they asked an average of 1.6 questions about it each month. One, maybe two, board members went around and looked at the physical facilities. They asked a couple of questions, or more commonly made a couple of suggestions. One, maybe two, board members observed some of the recreation programs ... and so on. These last comments are in the past tense to be kind to those—and it wouldn't be surprising if it is the majority—whose boards still operate that way. Or at least have a board member or two who operate that way.

Probably there is no survey that counted this, but it is my clear impression that real policy in the vast majority of districts is being set by individual decisions on particular problems or questions that happen to come up. There are nicely written statements of missions and goals and policies. But the real implementation, the decisions that express the essence of what the policy really is, are made on an ad hoc basis through the

years—often without a full realization that it is policy that is being made. Importantly, the board doesn't even control what problems or issues come up for decision. Decisions concerning priorities among, for example, kids vs. adults vs. seniors, summer vs. winter, free vs. fee. ball-bouncing vs. leaf-raking. etc.. are made in terms of specific individual activities that exist or are newly proposed. Often—maybe even most often—those decisions are made as a reaction to which group of residents hit on the board last. There is precious little time devoted to a think-tank type operation in which the board members discuss their philosophy and the reasons they are making those ad hoc decisions that set priorities. Priorities are policies.

Occasionally, a problem comes up that allows the board to think in basic terms. We had one in Elmhurst a couple of years ago when the new safety rules were promulgated about three-meter diving boards at the swimming pools. Our old pools didn't quite adhere to a strict reading of the rules. Our diving hoppers were a few inches too shallow or too short or something, but we could be grandfathered in if we chose. As we debated, we realized the choice represented a relatively simple difference. Simple to state; not necessarily simple to decide. We believe one of our duties—that is one of our goals — is to provide safe programs. Another of our goals is to provide opportunities for fun, and the high dives arc one of the most fun things to do at our old pools that don't have water slides. The decision-making wasn't easy. but at least in that case we made it in terms of a basic policy consideration—fun versus detailed safety standards. Unfortunately, most of the time the decision-making is a rather narrowly focused response to resident objections or requests, or has to do with issues that are not so clear-cut as involving basic goals of the district.

For many board members, the historical kind of operation suits them just fine. They like to spend their time studying the bids that arc received, criticizing the use of 10-10-10 fertilizer, tinkering with the budget or the list of recreation offerings because that way they are "watching out for the interests of the voters of the District who put us here." Most especially they like sitting on the grievance board, where they can listen to individual residents, or great hordes of residents, and then play the role of jury and judge and make momentous decisions— decisions that may or may not agree with the written policies, and are efficient only in the sense that they keep the aggressive residents off their backs. They don't usually talk of it as keeping the residents off their backs; they talk of it as being "responsive to the voters."

Other board members wanted to change. They—I should ay we. because I count myself among them—wanted to let the director scope the checks, let the professional staff look at the ids and select the trees and the fertilizer and the mowing machines and the rowing machines and which recreation programs to offer. We wanted to spend our time thinking about that our park district is all about. Why is the park district here? that should be different in the community and in the lives of

"It's not enough to decide; you must be able to explain your decision to the next board member who joins your group..."

its residents because of our operation? What should be the relative application of the district's resources—both time and money resources—among fun, fitness, education, ecology, conservation, beauty, urban form, nature appreciation, art appreciation, and so forth? What should be the relative application of our resources between the rich and the poor, the old and the young, males and females. and so forth? Should we offer only a floor of basic recreation programming that we can run with the tax dollars, or should we add progressively more that require progressively more fees and squeeze some people out? Should we let the public come to us or should we employ modern marketing techniques and persuade them to patronize us? Each decision—whether it's this or that. or how much of this and how much of that—needs to be backed up by the "why." It's not enough to decide; you must be able to explain your decision to the next board member who joins your group and to the next resident who asks. That takes time. It takes mental energy. Because you are not the only person on the board, it takes discussion and education and argument and persuasion. And it takes learning to lose.

A part of this is the concept of not just listening to what the residents—the voters—want now but rather thinking about what the district really ought to do for today's residents and for future residents and then leading today's residents to agree and to accept it. That's called leadership, and if the board doesn't do that, if all you do is listen to today's residents and what they currently think, you might as well hire the Gallup poll to run your operation and spend your own time as a volunteer elsewhere.

At the Elmhurst Park District—where I've served off and on through losses and wins in elections since 1955—some on our board decided a few years ago we wanted to change. To change to a system in which we limited our service as board members to thinking, and to establishing real goals, and to leading. But we didn't have a good road map. a good procedure to follow, a well-thought-out series of steps that would lead us to where we wanted to be. So we remained frustrated.

A personnel psychologist in Indiana noted the same problem. There are many books on management, but no how-to books on the specific task of establishing goals, and policies to implement them. Administration is covered in many textbooks, boardsmanship is not. So this fellow developed a set of procedures. His name is John Carver and he has been on National Recreation and Park Association conferences and NRPA-sponsored nationwide satellite presentations over the past several years.

This article is not presented to tout John Carver. It is presented to tout the kind of system he offers. The point is no one ever got really good at a musical instrument, or a sport, or tree pruning, or teaching, or whatever. without some training. some instruction, some coaching. Just so, to be a policy-maker you need some training, some instruction, some methods to follow. Do it by going to school or seminars, do it by self-instruction from a manual, do it by observing others who are

expert. Or much better, do it by participating in an on-the-job experience.

We at the Elmhurst Park District—as did the Naperville Park District before us—adopted the Carver method. He's thought it through. He's worked at an analysis of the governance process and has modified it with others in a variety of fields. He now has direct experience in our field—in public parks and recreation. Importantly, he has a training procedure to get anyone started.

We hired him to teach us the principles. You can get the essence of that inexpensively by reading one of his books or getting one of his videotapes—or borrow ing ours. We hired him for a few days as a facilitator as we developed the less important parts of the whole program—the necessary policies having to do with executive limitations, monitoring the executive's performance and so on. We worked on the really critical policies—the ones having to do with the ultimate goals of our district—largely by ourselves. We thrashed around with different approaches to get there. Some of our board members individually drafted sets of goals, or "ends" as Carver calls them. Our staff drafted a set. Carver led us through a work-session in which we started mainly with our right brains to throw out ideas and then shifted to our left brains to put all the ideas into one logical list that encompassed all those that we agreed on, each in just a few key words. Later, we tried having individual board members lead us to developing sub-ends to explain the few words that stated the basic goals. That didn't work well for us. So we went back to a kind of brainstorming. It really doesn't matter how we got to where we are. Your experiences and personalities are likely different from ours so you likely need a different method.

"Our real job is to set the course of the district, the ends we want to reach, the goals we want to achieve. To decide why we are here, what should be different."

The critical thing is, we got there—at least for now. We're sure we'll make some changes, but we agreed on eight basic ends or goals, and enough sub-goals to explain to ourselves and the staff and anyone else what we mean by the basic statements. Then we set priorities among the goals, on a more-or-less quantified basis. We know we can do better at that, but we're still crawling.

Most importantly we now have a strategy, and we have a method, that sets the stage for the board to do the board's work— goal-setting at the beginning and evaluation at the end—while the director is held responsible for doing what is necessary to achieve those goals within both the budget and the other constraints set for him or her. The board sets the ends; the director selects the means. For example, our board has decided we should have a written operational policy on environmental protection, but the board won't write it or even approve it; we believe the director is competent to do that detailed job. As another example, residents with suggestions or complaints now come to the board last—if at all— rather than first. Our director makes the decisions on old arguments and new problems within the guidelines dictated by the ends and the restrictive policies the board has established for him, just as happens with a private sector company. Only if someone believes the director's decision is not a reasonable interpretation of the policies, or they wish to petition the board to change the policies, can they take up the board's time at a board meeting.

The monthly staff report is now organized by the eight basic ends or goals of the district so the board can see what's being done toward achieving each one.

We're making more rapid progress than expected in getting our budget organized that way too. Just as a project-oriented budget is better for serious planning purposes than a traditional line-item budget, so a goal-oriented budget is better than a project-oriented one. The director will have the old line-item budget that he feels he needs to keep daily tabs on the workings of the district, but through the miracle of computer spreadsheet technology the line-item budget can be transformed into a goal-oriented budget whenever the right button is pressed. We all will look at the proposed goal-oriented budget at the beginning of each year's budget work. We on the board will add here and subtract there in terms of broad goals or ends of the district. If we wish, we'll add and subtract among the more detailed goals as well—without, I hope, going too far into minute detail. Then we'll turn it back to the director to work out what he will cut and add to make the final budget be divided as the board says it should be.

We on the board won't decide between in-house vs. contract labor. We won't decide between floor aerobics and water aerobics, or between reel and rotary mowers. What we will have decided, however, are the basic questions of priorities between fun and beauty (or fun and safety), between health and art appreciation, how much of our land assets should be devoted to shaping urban form and how much to developing pride in community, and other things like that.

The whole process is teaching each one of us on the board to think in broad policy terms. Teaching us to accept that while we believe we might be better at all decision making than our director is, by not getting involved with administrative minutiae we can have the time to think about our real job. Our real job is to set the course of the district, the ends we want to reach, the goals we want to achieve. To decide why we are here, what should be different in the community and in the lives of its residents because of the operation of the park district.

Someone ought to do that hard work, we were elected to do it, and this process makes it a possibility.

About the Author
Eugene Pomerance is a commissioner of the Elmhurst Park District and a past-president of IAPD.