How does the funding at your park and recreation agency compare with funding levels at other agencies? Does your agency have access to the same level of funding as its peers? Per the U.S. Census Bureau, local and regional park agencies had operations expenditures of $36.4 billion in 2016. This amount is split across the thousands of park and recreation agencies throughout the nation, with the typical park agency having annual operating expenditures of $3,834,500 or $78.69 on a per capita basis.

Further examination shows that the median-level operating expenditures is $6,750 per acre of park and non-park sites managed by the agency and that the typical park and recreation agency has $93,230 in annual operations expenditures for each employee (as measured by full time equivalents or FTEs).

Personnel services represent 55 percent of the operations budget. This includes expenditures for all salaries, wages and benefits for both full-time and non-full-time personnel along with contracted individuals.

Expenditures dedicated to parks or recreation is split with 44 percent of an agency’s operating expenditures going to parks and 42 percent going to recreation.