The Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee, chaired by Councilmember Sally Alcorn, held a workshop on May 15, 2026, to review the proposed FY27 budget for the Houston Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD). Director Kenneth Allen and finance lead Bridget Ikoff presented the budget, which showed a decrease of approximately $300,000 in supplies and services, with total expenditures of $106.4 million across all funds ($88.5 million from the general fund). The department outlined strategic alignment with mayor’s priorities, program spending, revenue projections, and new KPIs. Public speakers advocated for increased maintenance funding, staffing, and equity in park investments.
On our fourth day of budget workshops, and I'm Sally Alcorn, chairing the budget and fiscal affairs committee, and I want to welcome first the parks department. He'll be presenting to be followed by the Department of Neighborhoods, and then we'll be hearing from City Legal. And I am joined by my staff from my vice chair, Councilmember Mario Castillo, staff from Council Member Joaquin Martinez, staff from Vice Mayor Pro Tem Amy Peck, staff from Councilmember Twilight Carter, and my own staff here. And just want to remind everybody out there in HTV that tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. is our budget workshop for the public, and that will take place at the Fondee Recreation Center. So hope to see a lot of people there. All right. With that, Director, I'd like to introduce Director Kenneth Allen, and he is joined by Bridget Ikoff. Yes. And she comes from HR, but we're so happy to see you and glad to see everybody wearing green. I'm with the theme today, too. Green for parks. So happy to have our hardworking parks department here. And with that, you may proceed. Also, want to welcome Kate Dentler with Councilmember Amy K Abby Kamen. All right, thank you, Councilmember. I'd like to also thank staff from other council offices, as well as my esteemed colleagues and guests that are here and general public. You know, it's just an honor to serve as a parks director for the Houston Parks and Recreation Department as we submit our 27 uh budget proposal. Um, you know, I'm excited about this coming fiscal year because of opportunities and efficiencies. Um, I want to introduce again Bridget Ikoff, our uh management and finance um lead for our department. Um she's been with us in terms of the city for a while. Um, stole it from me, but I stole the back. And needless to say, she's a critical role in this process, and she's worked with all of my division heads and other staff to present this budget, not only from a financial standpoint, but from an operation standpoint as we execute the budget throughout the year. I also like to uh recognize our finance and management team that's sitting behind me, as well as executive staff and the employees that work tolerant tire tirelessly day to day on operations on meeting our budget, on executing it, and on implementing all the things that we do with the resources that we have. Now, moving forward, as we look at this coming year, um we just maintain steadfast. Our budget has not changed much from last year, uh, but we are a lot more efficient. I mentioned my team. There's only one person, and that's Erica Madison that's on their original executive team when I started in this seat, and they have transitioned well. Uh they communicate. I mean, they're they're a team, and we work together to accomplish the things that we're accomplishing. I just wanted to note that um it's just through strategic partnerships and fiscal responsibility and management. Um we're maximizing our resources, and we're delivering delivering measurable and meaningful outcomes for citizens. Let's go to the first slide. Um, this slide, you know, in terms of the table of contents, we have strategic alignment, plans to eliminate the gap, proposed FY27, department expenditures, uh, outcome based budget programs, proposed FY27, department revenue, and then an appendix at the end of this presentation with a wealth of information from our R chart to tell you a little bit more about our team, uh park facilities, um, and our inventory, KPIs that we're going to for FY27, but that we will start implementing um this year internally as we turn the curve from the Ernest and Young study. And then also department um demographics along with department accomplishments. Next slide, please. This slide shows the parks and recreation and how we align with the mayor's priorities. Uh 45% of our budget is prioritized and addressed under quality of life, 4% in public safety, 16% in infrastructure, and 35% in government that works in that category. I want to note in this category it accounts for the Houston Zoo contract. Next slide, please. Our FY 27 budget reduction is a decrease of about $300,000 in supplies and services. I'll go into that when we reach the program. But like I said, minimal impact on our operations compared to last year. Next slide, please. This slide capture it captures the expenditures from each fund. Our largest expenditures is 88.5 million in our general fund. And the total expenditures from all funds is 106 million, 106.4 million. We, in terms of the Bio Greenways 2020 fund from 2106 noted in the slide, we reduced, we were reduced by 1.26 million because we no longer service the White Oak Bio, Houston Parks Board decide they're servicing that and leaving us with some gaps that I think we were able to fill based on vacancies that we had in our department. We didn't have to lay any of that the 11 staff off that was operating and maintaining that part that portion of our trail system. Next slide, please.