Managing Routine Maintenance

It requires a mix of prioritization, teamwork, and preemptive funding

By Jefferey Spivey

Among many reasons, park maintenance is important to ensure the safety of public facilities, protect investments in public lands, and position parks as a source of pride for local communities. But parks departments often have to juggle preventative work with other concerns, including emergencies, staffing shortages, and the addition of new parks or other construction projects. It’s a battle the Arlington County Department of Parks and Recreation in Virginia knows all too well.

Photo: John Bilderback

During the 2021 Thanksgiving holiday, a four-day weekend for parks staff members, two public restrooms were vandalized. The discovery forced department leaders to shift plans quickly upon returning to the office Monday morning.

“We [were] actually in leaf season mode, so my teams [were] primarily engaged in leaf removal at all our parks,” says Kasey Spriggs, Park Service Area Manager for the department’s Parks and Natural Resources division. “But because of the urgency of the graffiti and what was damaged, a few members of my team have to be taken away from doing their routines for leaf season and deal with removing the graffiti.”

These types of decisions are made frequently, especially coming off weekends or holiday periods. In these instances, it’s easy for routine maintenance to take a backseat to more pressing problems.

“It’s a balancing act,” says Fernando Buenaventura, the department’s Facilities and Construction Manager.

This raises a critical question. With all the duties and responsibilities parks leaders deal with on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis, how can departments get everything done without sacrificing the maintenance and quality of parks?

A Four-Tiered System

Buenaventura uses a simple, four-tiered system to guide each day’s work. Tier one is comprised of urgent requests, like the restroom vandalism that occurred while the team was out of the office. The second tier covers high-priority tasks, like leaks and facility damage on park or school grounds. Third on the list are medium-priority tasks, largely preventive maintenance that keeps equipment and facilities in good, operational condition. Last are low-priority tasks, which tend to be largely cosmetic improvements.

The principle that undergirds the department’s decision-making process is safety.

“Let’s say a playground piece is broken, and it’s jeopardizing the safety of the children that are going to play on it; we jump on it right away,” Spriggs says.

However, a clear, objective process for task prioritization isn’t the only key to effectively managing routine maintenance. As with any organizational initiative, cross-training and collaboration are vital.

Buenaventura regularly enlists skilled workers from one department to shadow workers in another. For example, carpenters may be assigned to help electricians, or electricians may work alongside plumbers. Aside from investing in his staff’s growth and development, he’s shoring up the department’s resources, ensuring he always has the necessary manpower to handle any problems that arise, regardless of when and where they happen. 

Photo: Terray Sylvester

Spriggs also suggests that leaders tap into team members’ existing expertise to address maintenance concerns.

“The individuals who are doing the work, they have a lot of experience and knowledge, and if you’re in tune, they can help you figure out solutions,” he says.

Still, even with a knowledgeable, engaged, and cross-trained team, staffing issues may occur.

“We’re not any different than anybody else,” Deputy Division Chief David Farner says, regarding pandemic-related, talent-acquisition problems that have plagued many industries. Due to budget issues in 2020, the department brought in temporary staff members while managing retirements and resignations, and Farner says he was in the process of bringing more temp workers onboard. “The other issue that we always have from Thanksgiving into January is that lots of staff want to take time off, but we still need to make sure that we’ve got the staff available to handle the graffiti incidents or whatever safety issues that pop up in parks or a snowstorm if one pops up around Christmas,” he adds.

In response, department leaders have focused on improving efficiencies and adopting new practices that allow them to do more with less. This past leaf season, Spriggs’ team stopped removing leaves entirely from properties, deciding instead to mulch some leaves and leave others in place to maintain nutrient levels in certain park ecosystems. For park departments that may be struggling with similar constraints, he suggests looking for ways to tweak processes, researching new equipment that can ease the burden left by fewer workers, and contacting nearby municipalities for new ideas.

Long-Term Care

But, as Farner points out, one of the most significant factors in managing routine maintenance goes far beyond day-to-day priority-setting.

“As any parks system develops new amenities or changes things out, [they should] also make sure they’re thinking about the long-term costs of something,” he says. “How are you going to take care of it 10 years from now?”

These considerations were echoed by Guillermo Rodriguez and George Dusenbury, the California and Georgia State Directors for The Trust For Public Land. 

The Trust For Public Land focuses on park equity, using new parks to improve the quality of life in local areas. The organization does this through advocacy for park-friendly policy and close relationships with public agencies and communities. In Georgia, Dusenbury recently led an effort to raise $14 million for a new 16-acre park in downtown Atlanta. In plans like these, long-term care is always baked into the process.

“We try to design in such a way that it’s easy for the parks department to maintain,” Dusenbury says.

For departments in the design phase for new parks, he suggests eliminating amenities that demand costly upkeep. Swimming pools can be swapped for splash pads, landscaping can be limited to grass and trees, and play spaces can be constructed from sturdier, vandalism-resistant materials.

These types of park plans, with a more conservative approach to maintenance, can be beneficial in securing funding, according to Rodriguez.

Photo: Annie Bang

“When we’re knocking on potential donors’ doors, the big question they have is, is the local government going to be able to maintain this,” he says. “Because our donors are focused on that question, we as an organization have increasingly become focused on that question.” 

Donors aside, Rodriguez advises departments to think innovatively about spending and workforce development. In South Gate, a Southern California city, the LA Conservation Corps was contracted to work on-site at a new park, enabling city staff to dedicate time and resources to core operations while the Conservation Corps’ youth gain valuable work experience and assist with maintenance.

Rodriguez says this novel approach can be applied across city departments as well, by “breaking down the silos that exist in cities” and thinking “very creatively with resources, with public funds, [so] that they can be used in very smart, creative ways.” He says that cities should be incentivized to work horizontally.

For other solutions in managing routine maintenance, Dusenbury urges departments to form public-private partnerships with local businesses, engage the community and “friends groups” (made up of citizens with a passion for parks), and appeal to local philanthropists.

“Everywhere there’s a park, there are a few people who really care about that park,” Dusenbury says. “How do you empower them?”

There are many avenues to ensure departments don’t fall behind on maintenance, from developing in-house expertise and establishing clear hierarchies of priority to recruiting community support and designing through a maintenance lens. But, regardless of what options a department chooses, what’s clear is that routine maintenance is anything but routine, requiring constant attention, partnership, and change.

Jefferey Spivey is a writer based in Urbandale, Iowa. Reach him at jeffereyspivey@gmail.com.