Submitted by Charlie McCormick
The circus surrounding Oakland’s nationally respected recreation program is a very local example of how government in New Jersey is broken.
Things will continue to get worse for New Jersey residents for years to come as the state seeks to save itself at the expense of local municipalities. The state’s growing debt obligations last week led to a credit downgrading by Standard & Poor’s; local school boards have been alerted that additional state aid may impact their budgets; and municipal budgets may also see additional shrinking of state aid.
Government is broken, so the less of it the better, but quality of life should always improve; to move in essentially two different directions, elected leaders need to stop looking inside the box for ideas which perpetuate the bureaucratic machine that imposes increased costs on residents. Only outside the box can ways to improve services, improve quality of life, and reduce government be found.
The debacle surrounding the Oakland Recreation Commission which began with a surprise push by Mayor Szabo to hire a full-time recreation director at a cost of over $100,000 annually is a prime example. More money is not the answer. It is fiscally irresponsible, and morally irresponsible. It burdens residents with additional costs, and communicates to the public, the youth, and the volunteers that money is the only solution.
While Bloomindale, NJ muddles through a political firestorm concerning what many residents deem to be party politics playing a role in their recreation commission, New Milford, NJ just established a recreation commission in an attempt to remove politics from the recreation.
The situation with Oakland offers another example with the recent push for a paid recreation director occurring immediately after the November election, and the success by the Recreation Commission to rally public protest to the proposal. This is politics, and government is based on politics. The recent call by the mayor for Steve Wagoner’s resignation concerning public “threats” Wagoner made about the mayor not being re-elected in November appears very political.
Less government is the answer to getting politics out of recreation, and to improve services while seeking to reduce costs. Seeking to impose additional costs, seeking to find additional revenue through recreational fees is not fiscal responsibility. Outside the box thinking is needed to get government out of recreation, and partner with a non-profit agency that can streamline processes, provide services, and continue to foster the culture of volunteerism that is a major component in making Oakland a great community.
The town of Allendale, NJ is one example were The Recreation Commission is a non-profit entity. The Allendale Recreation Commission is a self-sustaining non-profit organization that was established to sponsor youth recreation programs for children in grades kindergarten through eighth who resides in Allendale. It is staffed entirely by volunteer parents and is responsible for baseball, softball, kickball, soccer and basketball programs.
A non-profit running the Oakland Rec program would still be allowed to participate in group buying with the other towns, but it would eliminate the need for extensive government resources to be devoted to it. Oakland’s CFO would no longer need to be so involved in budgeting, the Borough administrator would not need to be involved in purchasing, and the town council would not need to have a full vote simply to re-fund $100 to someone. These are just a few of the many areas where time and money could be saved.
Government is broken, so the less of it the better. Oakland government should get out of the recreation business, and partner with a local non-profit.
Privatizing the Oakland recreation program makes sense. Over the previous 4 years Oakland Recreation did have a pilot privatization program, the Oakland Braves Travel Baseball organization. This program was very successful, and if not for a May 2010 ruling would still be running the town’s travel baseball program.
In 2006 after completing my first season as baseball commissioner, I felt it very wrong for my 10 managers to be out-of-pocket $300 – $450 to pay umpires. At that time I spoke with a council member to find out what could be done to fix this problem. He informed me that since umpires were not paid through the borough’s purchase order process, there was nothing that could be done. After trying to plead my case he said: “Mike, it is what it is”. At this time I met with my baseball volunteers to see what kind of out-of-the-box thinking we can use to change the “it is” part of that equation. We decided to privatize the program. After a year of setting the organization up as a 501c3, we got the endorsement of the town to move forward. I cut through all the details on how the town gave its endorsement but would be happy to fill in the blanks if asked. It’s another long story.
As the private entity, the OBTB (as the organization became affectionately know) did not receive any town funds. The group went out and got 3 quotes for all items purchased, fundraised to keep costs down and reimbursed coaches through a checks and balance audit system; no volunteer was out of money and it cost the town $0.
Some benefits from running as a private entity versus running through the town: All our recreation programs that run through the town are NOT permitted to carry balances over to the next year. As an example, if recreation ended with a $1,000 left over at the end of the year, it would seem natural to offset the programs the following year by $1,000. With government budgeting, that money goes back to the tax coffers and is not allowed to be carried over for recreation. With the OBTB we carried left over money to the next year to offset costs. In fact in 2010 when costs for everything else in the world were going up, the OBTB decreased travel baseball sign-up fees.
Another benefit is that the OBTB as a private group could fundraise to defray costs. In October of the OBTB’s first year in existence we ran a very successful baseball tournament. The tournament was very profitable and gave the OBTB a nice financial cushion to start the season. After sign-ups were complete the OBTB purchased new baseball pants for all 110 players. This was a huge defrayal of costs. As the recreation commission we were never permitted to fundraise and collect fees. If so motivated we could ask the Sports Association, the Mothers Club or Fathers Club to run the fundraising for us, but as a commission we could not do it directly.
An advantage, the OBTB did not have to purchase through the WOLF bid purchasing process. This is the purchasing process that requires us to use uniform/sports equipment companies that submitted bids through the Wyckoff, Oakland and Franklin Lakes joint purchasing venture. In theory this sounds like a good idea, but practically when dealing with recreation it is very difficult. All of these companies are a long distance from Oakland and all of them have no vested interest in Oakland or the Oakland kids. I preferred to use local vendors. Local vendors hire our kids to work, local vendors donate to many Oakland organizations, and local vendors certainly do not want to mess up an Oakland order. Through the OBTB we received 3 or more quotes from local vendors, and purchased from the most cost effective of the group. When dealing with a local vendor, if we needed to change a size, we needed to order a piece of equipment, or were short baseballs I could get in my car and drive to the local store to pick up the item. While working with the WOLF bid companies I would need to contact the borough, have them call Ohio, Pennsylvania etc. and go through the purchase order process of receiving the needed items. This is very clumsy, requires 3 to 4 weeks to get the items, takes away from borough employees work time and saved NO purchase costs.
The OBTB was a nice system that made running a recreation program an absolute pleasure. Unfortunately last May the borough ruled the OBTB a “club baseball team” and forced it to sever all ties to the recreation commission and borough. The OBTB was to be treated as any outside group looking for fields. Because of this ruling the OBTB had to pay $1,800 to use the Oakland fields and $1,200 for private insurance. Thankfully, because of the measures taken above, the OBTB had the money in its treasury to absorb such a draconian change in the borough’s position. As a side note, over the past few weeks you may have heard about the “travel baseball issues”, it was this fight last year to keep the OBTB running the travel baseball program and stop being forced to pay even more fees to the town.
The OBTB was legally set up as a 501c3 to create complete transparency. Its treasurer is a CPA, Dave who you may have seen speak at the Nov council meeting. He ran all the finances, filed the tax returns and did it out of the joy of volunteering. After this ruling I updated the 2011 Oakland borough recreation budget to include travel baseball back under the town’s umbrella. This effectively ended the OBTB’s involvement with the program except for acting as the Cooperstown trip fundraising arm.
Over the past few years Steve and I wanted to bring the entire recreation program private, in the spirit of the Wayne PAL or of the Midland Park recreation programs. We had some issues that needed to be worked out. Over the past few months we felt they were all worked out, and Steve had a meeting set with the mayor for January 17th; this was prior to us having any knowledge of what was coming down on recreation. That meeting was canceled on January 14th and never rescheduled. I have asked Steve to come on this page to explain the details of moving Oakland recreation private.
I whole-heartedly agree with this article that Charlie wrote. I feel privatizing recreation is a good idea, one that takes government out of the recreation business and one that would benefit all the people of Oakland.
I am confused by this. I was under the impression that the Recreation Commission was not under the control of the mayor and Council.