In late December, the Plainfield, N.J., city council approved multiple amendments to the city's approximately $70 million budget. Among them was the transfer of $30,000 from full-time parks and recreation department salaries to seasonal, part-time salaries. In response, Dave Wynn told MyCentralJersey.com that the appropriation was a purely political move aimed at diminishing his full-time status.
"It's personal," Wynn told reporter Mark Spivey, adding that his department was "bar none, the most productive division" in the city. "No one can tell me anything different."
At least Wynn has a job. As municipalities have struggled with the economic downturn, some have tried to make due by cutting funding for the recreation department director position altogether.
For example, the town of Landis, N.C., only advertised for a replacement parks and rec director nearly half a year after the previous one had retired, and that after the town board twice voted to disband the entire department (in both instances, the board was swayed by the former rec director to merely make cuts to and reorganize the already small department.)
The city of Manitowoc, Wis., meanwhile, has been operating without a parks and recreation director for more than a year, since the January 2010 retirement of former director Joe McLafferty. Despite mayor Justin Nickels' vocal calls during last year's budget hearings for re-establishing a department head, the city opted to save the estimated $92,924 cost associated with the position for 2011, according to the city's Herald Times Reporter. The budget cut came after city leaders chose, but never actually hired, a new department head, Adam Backus, in October.
"I strongly believe Mr. Backus - looking over his history - would pay for his position by the grants he would receive, the leadership he would provide and the vision he would have for the future of our parks and recreation department," Nickels said in a January press release.
At the time of this writing, Backus remained in the wings while the city of approximately 35,000 residents operated without a recreation department head. "I do not want to see our parks and recreation programs diminished because of the lack of vision and leadership in the department," Nickels said in his release. "Adding these responsibilities to other department heads will only make our parks and recreation programs a lower priority."
