The Committee held a budget oversight hearing for the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and the Department of General Services (DGS). The councilmember questioned DPR leadership on numerous fiscal year 2027 budget line items, including training costs, staffing alignments, reductions in volunteer relations, security, and external affairs, as well as capital projects such as RFK Stadium, Riggs LaSalle, Fort Stevens, pool replacements, ADA compliance, and playground equipment. The director provided explanations and committed to working with the council on prioritization.
Development. Okay, she's a increase of 85% in fiscal year 26 and over 200% fiscal year 25. And so I want to understand why why was this increase necessary and what will it what will the increase pay for that couldn't be paid for at fiscal year 25 levels? I I think to your point um we are increasing uh cost of training because we want our staff to be better aligned with the needs, and so we'll want to provide and ensure our staff are better able to deal with uh constituents. Okay, um, so it'll be uh will it be more training or is the cost of the existing training going up? So so it's kind of what we also did we moved our training from HR. We now have a training and development department so that we can be strategic about ensuring that our uh staff members are properly trained. Um you'll see those cost shift. Okay, and is that explained because there was an increase in a and the this increase in agency management contrast with a 25,000 or uh or 28% decrease to the training and employee development division? Yes, ma'am. So is that the reason for the discrepancy? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Turning to agency financial operations, there is 229 or 60% increase to agency budgeting and financial management services. Uh what's the reason for this increase, or is this a reclassification of FTs? Um, so our off our AFO's office was not initially fully staffed, and based on the MOU, um, we had to hire more positions to support the agency's needs, and so we were we're now fully funded. Okay. Uh there was a small 2,000 decrease in volunteer relations, but that amounts to uh 13% decrease from fiscal year 26 and a 91% decrease from fiscal year 25. What was reduced over the last two years for volunteer relations relations that allows for this continued decrease? Uh that's a great question. I'll have to look at um maybe uh print we may have uh do we have an in-house print team, so maybe publications that we pay for out. Okay. Um and with the volunteer relations deductions, how have these deductions impacted DPR's ability to engage with its many volunteers? They help keep or keep our parks and outdoor uh recreations clean. We're excited about our volunteers. Um not only do they support with keeping our parks um and playgrounds clean, they support with large events like her story 5K, um, to our late night hypes. Um we're seeing an increase in volunteerism. Um people are hitting us up and saying they want to help. So um we're excited about that. Okay. Um, sorry. And con in con contrast, there was 208,000 increase to donor relations. What is this increase? Why is this increase next necessary? Um in donor relations. Yeah, I think that's a uh uh we did a realignment to make sure again going back to our schedule A, we wanted to make sure that we realigned uh various one-off units, so within our comms division, um in our partnership and strategic initiatives, there's more alignment there, okay. In her testimony, Kelly call uh Collins Choi from KC Trees encouraged DPR to prioritize expanding public-private partnerships with organizations like Casey Trees to expand access to technical assistance, philanthropic funding, and more capacity support DC's green spaces, especially in a tight but budget year. Is this something that DPR is exploring like as as well? Absolutely. Okay. Um DPR has a security budget, and that was also reduced by 244,000. What security services does DPR pay for that are not covered by DGS Protective Services Division? Is this after hours events security? So DGS Protective Services, um, all of our security we pay them. And so this is a reduction in security guards at our sites. I heard Director Hunter testify a little earlier how we uh look at various sites and uh reduce our footprint or our armed guards um versus a security officer um at various locations where uh security may not be an issue, and so we do pay for our community our security services directly. Okay, and so is this this uh reduction of two hundred forty-four thousand? Is that going to limit uh DGS's DPR's ability for to make sure that our centers have the protection so people in space that it needs our strategy. So I'll use uh I hate to use site names because you know they're like you'll say my site. Um so I'll use um hypothetically Joy Evans, who does not currently have security, but let's say if Joy Evans had security from 6 a.m.