FROM THE EDITOR

Is your agency in the "50°/o-Up Club?"

Members of this group, says Robert Porter of Lemont Park District, are fiscally "aggressive" with at least 50 percent of revenues generated from sources other than taxes.

Lemont, for example, is in the club at 54/46 (54 percent of revenues from other sources, 46 percent from taxes). Twenty-five years ago, this southwest Chicago suburb of 17,000 was 97-percent dependent on taxes.

The Park District of Highland Park is a member with 60/40. So is Skokie Park District at 70/30.

Increasingly, agencies find it necessary to be more entrepreneurial because of the public's call to "do more with less," die tax cap, and the rising cost of doing park and recreation business. For example, an acre of land in DuPage County can cost more than $850,000. (See page 41 for the DNR's 1999 land value report.)

So, where's all this other revenue coming from?

Four members of "the dub" share some of their enterprising ideas on page 27. Porter says fees and charges are now "bread and butter" tor many park districts and forest preserves, yet the pay-to-play debate continues.

"There is nothing wrong with placing a value on a recreation experience, but die managers of most urban park systems set their prices for die 20 percent who can't pay rather than for the 80 percent who can," says parks consultant Leon Younger in "To Pay or Not To Pay" on page 30, a reprint from Local Parks, Local Financing by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). (For the entire two-volume report, see www.tpl.org/tech/parkfinance/ index.html.)

Looking elsewhere, non-tax sources most often cited by enterprising minds are partnerships, sponsorships and philanthropy.

Some even say that philanthropy is the future of park funding. (See "The Giving Season" on page 23.)

Today, 58 Illinois park districts and forest preserves have foundations. According to IAPD, this figure has doubled in four years and more agency payrolls include development directors and sponsorship managers.

Finally, here are three good resources: Financing and Acquiring Park. and Recreation Resources by John. L. Crompton (Human Kinetics); Pocket Guide to Park District Financial Procdures(IAPD, www.ILparks.org); and Urban Parks OnLine (www.pps.org/urbanparks/).

Cheers to your happiness, health and prosperity!

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ANN M. LONDRIGAN
Editor

4/ Illinois Parks and Recreation

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