All right, I'm gonna call this meeting of the budget and audit committee to order our mayor still over the county and probably has another half hour and 45 minutes.

I would say please.

Let's go ahead and call the role.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Ashby.

Um Vice Chair Shane.

Vice Mayor Jennings.

And for the record, Mayor Steinberg will be absent.

Okay, let's uh go ahead to our do we have any public comments not on the agenda?

I have no speaker slips.

All right, so we'll move to the consent calendar.

Any uh thoughts or comments on the consent calendar?

Seeing none, is there a motion on the consent calendar?

I have a motion by Ms.

Aspie.

I heard a second by Mr.

Jennings.

All those in favor signify by aye.

Opposed, abstain the motion carries three to nothing.

I'm gonna take silence as aye over there.

All right, let's move to I I heard you.

Let's go to item uh three, please.

Uh audit of parks and record.

Good afternoon, members of the budget and audit committee.

Lynn Bashaw, Assistant City Auditor.

The City Auditor's Office conducts audits in accordance with generally accepted governing audit standards and provides objective, timely, and accurate information about city operations.

In an effort to provide the committee with a well-informed, balanced report and to develop practical, achievable recommendations.

We worked closely with the Department of Parks and Recreation throughout this project.

As evidence of this collaborative effort, the Department of Parks and Recreation is in agreement with the report's findings and recommendations and has already started working on implementing some of them.

The recommendation before you is that you accept the city auditor's audit of the Department of Parks and Recreation's strategic planning and part-time employee benefits management and forward it to the full city council for final approval.

Provide some background information.

This slide provides a brief snapshot of some of the various programs and services offered by the Department of Parks and Recreation, or DPR.

As you can see, DPR offers an array of diverse programs and services to the residents of Sacramento and the broader Sacramento community.

In addition to its programming, DPR manages and maintains community centers, pools, parks, and trails.

As this was our first venture into the Department of Parks and Recreation, we performed a department-wide risk assessment to determine where we were going to focus this audit.

Through the risk assessment process, we selected the department's strategic planning and their part-time employee benefits management as two areas for review during this engagement.

As DPR is currently going through the process of reorganizing its operations to establish a youth division, we felt that a look at their strategic planning would not only be timely, but would also complement the department's current restructuring efforts.

In performing this audit, we reviewed the department's planning and strategic documents, budget reports, interviewed staff, we contacted other city parks and recreation staff, performed benchmarking, testing, and reviewed industry best practices.

Some of the industry guidance we relied on included that of the National Recreation and Park Association, the NRPA.

The NRPA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of public parks, recreation, and conservation.

They produce research, education, and policy initiatives for park and recreation agencies.

Their commission for accreditation of park and recreation agencies, also known as CAPRA, accredits parks and recreation agencies throughout the United States that have met the standards by demonstrating a level of excellence in operations and service.

While the Department of Parks and Recreation is not seeking accreditation at this time, the CAPRA standards serve as best practices and a level of excellence to which they can aspire.

We reference these NRPA and CAP CAPRA standards throughout the audit report.

Finding one is that DPR has not updated key strategic planning guidance.

When we reviewed DPR strategic planning, we found that some of the key guidance had not been updated in several years, and that data quality could be improved.

Specifically, we noted that the master plan and strategic plan are obsolete.

DPR could benefit from a needs assessment survey.

Registration and call center data could be used to better inform the planning process if it was more complete.

Many of the department's programs and services do not have performance measures to evaluate their success, and DPR lacks department specific policies and procedures.

Parks and recreation departments must continually strive to improve service delivery and adapt to residents' evolving expectations.

The NRPA advises that planning should be an ongoing process and is a foundational element of decision making.

The cornerstone of a successful organization lies in its understanding of why it exists, its mission, where it is heading, its vision, and its guiding principles, its values.

A master plan is a forward-looking document that helps to define and document this shared set of principles and values.

The strategic plan outlines how the agency will then achieve those goals over the next three to five years.

These key planning documents have not been formally updated in several years, and the inputs that would typically help to inform the department's planning process could be improved.

Specifically, we noted that overall attendance for programs tracked in the department's class registration system has been declining over the last four years.

While DPR does not track all programs and services in this system, it is an overall indicator of the relevance of their programs and services, and if the data was more complete, could be used to better inform the department's programming strategy.

In order to learn more about the types of calls the 311 call center receives related to DPR, we obtained and analyzed data from the call center's software system.

This figure shows DPR call categories, the number of calls received in each category, and the percentage of total for fiscal year 2017.