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A report entitled "Professional Administrative and Technical Manpower in Illinois Local Government" is the final product of a 1968 research contract between the Illinois State Board of Higher Education and the Public Affairs Research Bureau of Southern Illinois University. The study was conducted to identify, analyze, and evaluate professional, administrative and technical (PAT) manpower supply and needs within local governments in Illinois (excluding school districts). Only the portion that deals with park and recreation manpower will be discussed in this article. The report deals with over 70 different occupations in local government service. PAT manpower is defined as positions in Illinois local government that require (whether a formal or informal requirement) at least two years of post high school or its equivalent before an individual can be considered for employment. The study had five major purposes: (1) locate the current supply of professional administrative, and technical manpower in Illinois local government; (2) identify PAT occupations for which Illinois local governments have the most pressing needs; (3) project the PAT occupational needs of Illinois local governments in 1975; (4) stimulate Illinois local governments to consider future PAT manpower needs in 1975; (5) develop a valuable methodology for conducting PAT manpower studies on a statewide basis. In respect to the third purpose, reasonably accurate projections can be used to plan curricula that will help meet future needs. The previously mentioned lack of appropriate PAT manpower data necessitated a reliance on the judgement of local officials. That is, local officials made projections of the numbers of employees that would be needed for their government agencies in 1975. Most data used was derived from a questionnaire mailed to selected local governments. The agency head or some designated individual filled out the questionnaire and mailed it back. The overall response rate was 45 percent. Of the 107 park districts surveyed, only 59 (55 percent) responded. Also, only 3 of the 9 forest preserve districts surveyed returned the questionnaire. Most of the questionnaires returned by the larger park districts were completed by the director of the park district rather than a board member. Local Government Employment in Illinois The governmental employment trends that have been observed for the United States as a whole are not substantially different for the State of Illinois. It is not possible to examine employment trends for Illinois over the same period as has been possible for the United States as a whole because of the unavailability of comparable data. But some trends can be indicated. First, the percentage of the civilian work force in the employ of government is less than the national average. In 1960 and 1964, 11.8 percent and 12.9 percent of the work force was employed in governmental service whereas the national average was 15.4 percent and Illinois Parks 42 January-February 1970 16.4 percent for the respective years. Governmental employees in the State of Illinois numbered 474,000 in 1964. Greatest number of PAT occupations The returns from the Local Government Supply and Needs Questionnaire indicates that the greatest number of PAT occupations are to be found in the functions of health and hospitals, general control, highways, parks and recreation, sewage and sanitation, and libraries. Difficulty of Recruitment for PAT Occupations The professional, administrative and technical positions of Illinois local governments are difficult to recruit. When local officials were asked to rate the "Present Difficulty of Filing a Position" on a three-point scale of "Not Very Difficult," "Difficult," and "Very Difficult," most of the ratings centered around the category of difficult. Points were assigned to the categories (one for "Not Very Difficult," two for "Difficult," and three for "Very Difficult") for the purpose of computing a difficulty rating with ranges between one and three. Of the 25 occupations reported most difficult to recruit, those employed by at least ten responding local governments fall in a range from 1.71 to 2.18 when ranked as to difficulty to recruitment. The researchers feel that such a range of values is impressive evidence of the difficulty of recruiting most PAT positions for Illinois local governments. In some cases where the occupation was not found in more than a handful of governments, its difficulty rating was above 2.18. For instance, respondents from only four Illinois local governments reported hiring statisticians and together rated this position as exactly half way (2.50) between "Difficult" and "Very Difficult." The Recreation and Administrator ranked #3 (2.12) in regard to difficulty of Recruitment for Illinois Local Governments.
* Occupations for which at least ten local governments report employment.
Recruitment Area for PAT Occupations It is interesting to contrast the ratings of difficulty of filling positions to a quite similar scale involving the area from which employees can be recruited. As in the case of difficulty of recruitment, scores were given to the areas of recruitment specified by local officials. Specifically, one point was given to each notation of "Can Recruit from Illinois," two points given to "Can Recruit from Illinois but Difficult," and three points to "Cannot Recruit from Illinois." In contrast to the Difficulty-of-Recruitment ranking, that for Area-of-Recruitment, Table 1 has far lower values (a range from 1.23 to 1.80) which, at the very least indicates that local respondents clearly understood the difference between the two questions. However, it means more than this. Since none of the ratings in Table fall above 2.00, we infer that the common PAT positions of local governments can be recruited from within the State of Illinois if salaries, fringe benefits, and other related factors are equal when a locality competes with other levels of government and the private sector. The parks, recreation, and natural resources functions of local government are performed almost exclusively by special districts in the State of Illinois, with a small number of municipalities also offering some recreation services. Within this area, the parks and recreation function is by far the most extensive and abundant for local government. Most of the natural resources functions are performed by the federal and state governments. The difference in the level of operations of these sub-areas can be observed when it is noted that only nine forest preserve districts were mailed questionnaires, whereas 108 park districts were so included. Sixty two percent of the full-time park and recreation administrators are located in the northeastern five-county area, 23 percent are found in the other nine urban counties, and the remaining fifteen percent are found in the 88 non-urban counties of the state. This position is one of the more difficult to recruit, but it is possible to recruit the position from the State of Illinois While the data on projections is somewhat impressive, there is an indication that many of the park districts not presently employing full-time administrators may do so by 1975. The recreation specialist in Illinois Local Government ranks high in sheer numbers. Respondents have noted that there are nearly 600 employees in this category, thus at least another 50 probably occur in the non-responding governments. In most cases, recreation specialists are required to have Illinois Parks 43 January-February 1970 a Bachelor's degree. The percentage is higher for this area because the Chicago Park District has 500 positions that require a Bachelor's degree. It accounts for approximately 85 percent of all the professional employees in the recreation function in Illinois local government. Respondents have noted that the recreation specialist is moderately difficult to recruit and that it is not particularly difficult to recruit the position from within the State of Illinois. Recruiting these specialists from Illinois may be facilitated by the recreation programs currently operating at the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University. Local governments in Illinois expect by 1975 to be hiring at least 160 recreation specialists over and above the currently budgeted positions. Park districts in the five-county area also employ a handful of landscape engineers who are required to have a Bachelor's degree. The districts report that this occupation is difficult to recruit, especially from within Illinois. That this position is not as crucial to the operation of local governments as the two previously discussed is indicated by the fact that there may be less than 10 landscape engineers in all local governments in the state. In the natural resources area, local governments in Illinois maintain a small number of positions that can be classified under the category of naturalists. These include foresters, agricultural economists, arborculturists, botanists and naturalists. All of these positions generally require undergraduate degrees in appropriate majors; and as may be expected, are difficult positions to recruit. Little more can be said of these occupations, for the rate of response from governments utilizing them is somewhat low. Yet, it can be expected that the difficulty of recruiting these occupations should not be abated by the year 1975, and a substantial increase over current employment levels might be the case. Overall Employment in Parks and Recreation Most of the employees in the parks and recreation function are to be found in the region of northeastern Illinois and two-thirds are employed by the Chicago Park District which is the fourth largest special district in the United States. The remainder of the employees in this function are spread throughout the remainder of the state with concentrations of employees in areas of urban density. Since detailed data, other than Statewide totals, are not available for any year other than 1967, it is not possible to analyze the function for the entire period. It can be observed from statewide employment totals for 1957, 1962 and 1967 that this function has remained relatively stable for the three years considered with only a slight decline for 1967. The explanation for this phenomenon is that lesser numbers of people are needed to maintain park systems because of the improvement in maintenance equipment. If Census Bureau data contained break-downs on occupations in this function, it would prob- [words missing from this article] and an increase in the number of persons performing direct ably show a decrease in the number of maintenance employees recreation duties. Illinois Parks 44 January-February 1970 |
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