Dear Fellow Oakland Resident,
We want you to know that the M&C plans to abolish the all Volunteer Oakland Recreation Commission and hire a full time Rec Director at a salary of $103,000.00 including benefits. We think this money could be better spent upgrading the complex or better yet in your pockets by not increasing taxes and fees. A rec volunteer who is a CPA has done a cost analysis of the M&C proposal. He determined that if taxes were not raised to pay this new salary and the $103,000 was raised by sign-up fees the hike would be approximately $37 per sport– per individual. As an example, a parent with 3 children each playing 3 sports would raise that family’s yearly sign-up by $330.
Oakland Recreation was rated #9 by Business Week Magazine for our Rec Programs. Currently all of our successful programs are brought to you by a dedicated group of volunteer Commissioners, Coordinators, Directors, Managers and Coaches. We do not believe that a paid rec director taking over decision making will improve our programs or the function of our complex.
One of the positive changes we plan on bringing to the Commission is a part time administrator/bookkeeper to handle the ever burdening mass of paperwork required by municipal government. The minimal salary of $15,000 will be easily covered in our rec budget. This past year recreation attempted to implement “on-line” registration, which would 1) improve accounting, transparency, and auditability of recreation sports, 2) save volunteers time through use of corresponding database features and reduction of registration errors and paper administrative practices, 3) save parents time and effort to register for sports, and 4) achieve a more green and sustainable operation in general. This too would have come out of the Recreation budget and help to streamline our paperwork; but unfortunately was not adopted by the mayor and council.
We are asking for concerned residents to join us at the next Mayor and Council meeting on Tuesday November 23rd 7:30pm, held just below the police station.
If the parking lot is full at the police station, there is parking at the senior center and/or field 8 parking lot. Just walk up the steps from the back of the senior center to the Police Station.
Thank you for supporting the independence of the Recreation Commission and see you on Tuesday November 23rd 7:30pm at the Council Meeting.
The Oakland Recreation Commission
Please go to www.oaklandrec.com and look at some of our accomplishments