QUESTION
What is the ideal staffing level for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation?
3:25:58
·
72 sec
The council member inquires about the adequate headcount required for the Parks Department to effectively maintain parks, including cleaning with second shifts and sufficient resources for the Trees And Forestry Division.
- The Parks Commissioner acknowledges that having more staff would be beneficial to enhance maintenance efforts across all parks in the five boroughs.
- However, she does not provide a specific target headcount number when directly asked.
- She states that it is difficult to determine an optimal staffing level, but more resources would allow the department to accomplish more.
Shekar Krishnan
3:25:58
So I'm hearing collectively more funding for maintenance, for keeping our parks clean, for caring for our trees, planting more trees, all to do with maintenance of parks and green spaces, which I agree is very important.
3:26:11
What, in your opinion, what is the staffing of the parks department?
3:26:16
What is the headcount that you would need to be able to ensure that all of the parks are cleaned with 2nd shifts.
3:26:26
That the Trees And Forestry Division has the resource that they need.
3:26:29
In your ideal picture, what would be the headcount that you would need for the Parks department?
Sue Donoghue
3:26:35
Thank you, council member for the question.
3:26:38
And as I said, we talked about our budgeted headcount is today.
3:26:43
There is no doubt, as I said, as a leader of the agency having more staff, it would be beneficial in order to be able to just do more in every park across the five boroughs.
Shekar Krishnan
3:26:54
But can you give me a number as to what you think would be an adequate level of staffing for the parks department in terms of headcount?
Sue Donoghue
3:26:59
It's really difficult to say what would be optimal just that, you know, obviously, more resources would allow us to get more done.
Shekar Krishnan
3:27:09
Got it.
3:27:10
Okay.