Chicago Park District officials announced Monday they will spend an additional $5 million on neighborhood park programs next year, a plan they hope will stem complaints that some areas have been shortchanged.
The biggest increase will be on the Southeast Side where nearly $2 million more will be spent on new programming. The central region will see an increase of about $1.4 million; the north and southwest regions will get about $1 million more; and the lakefront region will get about $574,000 more next year.
“We have been criticized for the inequitable distribution of our resources across the city. Our budget reflects our attempt to address those inequities,” Michael Scott, Park District board president, said.
The district’s operating budget for 2001 is $328 million, park General Supt. David Doig said. The money is being reapportioned to allow more for neighborhood programs, he added.
Also under the plan, residents will pay an additional $5 a year in taxes because the district is splitting off debt payments for the nine museums under its control. That means the owner of a $150,000 home would pay $190 in taxes to the Park District next year.
To offset the spending increase, the district is slashing $2 million from top-level management and expects new revenue from higher parking and harbor fees, Doig said.
And because the capital improvement debt on the museums would have added $4.8 million to the district’s levy next year, wiping out the new money it wanted to spend on neighborhood programs, the board decided to split it off. Taxpayers will see a separate line on their real estate tax bills for the museum bond debt.
The bond debt would be unusually high next year because of the way the payments were originally structured, Doig said.
“The district is continuing its recent history of trying to save and do more with less and at the same time realizing that the museums are starting to affect our budgets,” Doig said.
About 22 percent of the district’s operating budget goes to the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium, the Art Institute, the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, the DuSable Museum of African-American History, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Chicago Historical Society and the Museum of Science and Industry.
A public hearing on the district’s operating budget is planned for Monday. The park board is expected to vote on the spending plan Dec. 4.
The district’s capital improvement budget is expected to be written in January or February. That plan will outline the district’s park construction projects and land purchases but will not include recently announced plans to renovate Soldier Field since that construction is scheduled for 2002.
Myer Blank, of the Civic Federation, a public watchdog organization, said he generally supports the park plan for its focus on neighborhood programming. “The Civic Federation is hesitant to support a tax and fee increase,” he said. “But we do think this budget goes a long way to improving park programs.”
The district is continuing its shift toward non-property tax revenue, Scott said.
In the last seven years, revenue from parking fees, harbor fees and sponsorships has doubled to the estimated $106 million expected to be collected in 2001, he said.
Most program fees, such as those for day camp, will not be increased. But the fees at the district’s three underground parking garages have been raised between $1 and $4.
