MAINTENANCE 647 



FUNDAMENTAL REQUISITES FOR EFFECTIVE MAINTENANCE 



Adequate Revenues. 



First of all, the fundamental requisite for efficient maintenance is 

 adequate current revenues. Perhaps the most severe indictment that can 

 be brought against the citizens of a majority of American communities 

 having parks is their failure to provide their park officials with adequate 

 current revenues and especially revenues for maintenance. The people are 

 usually not backward in voting money for the acquisition and improve- 

 ment of properties, but they frequently fail to realize the corresponding 

 necessity of providing additional current revenues to maintain the improve- 

 ments properly. Park officials themselves have not always exercised far- 

 sighted judgment in this respect, often lending the weight of their influence 

 to movements for extensive improvements when they did not plainly see 

 how they were to be maintained afterwards. Some have no doubt acted 

 on the theory that once having the improvements the people would more 

 readily be moved to grant additional current revenues for maintenance. It 

 should be laid down as a principle in park management that no improve- 

 ments should be undertaken without exact assurance that current revenues 

 are sufficient to maintain them to the nth degree of efficiency. 



No general rule can be stated as to what portion of the budget of a 

 park department should be allocated to maintenance. Comparisons of finan- 

 cial statistics of existing park departments are valueless because of differences 

 in accounting systems, types of properties, number of properties, extent of 

 improvements, degree of use by the people, efficient or inefficient manage- 

 ment, presence or absence of political influence in employment of workers 

 and in the purchase of equipment, materials and supplies. Each individual 

 park system presents a distinct problem in this respect. 



Maintenance Personnel. 



The second fundamental factor in good maintenance is efficient organ- 

 izing and supervising leadership and a sufficient number of workers of the 

 different types needed. This, of course, goes back to the question of ade- 

 quate current income, but there is much more involved in it than the 

 question of money. In any park system the ultimate responsibility for 

 maintenance rests on the superintendent or chief executive. The number 

 of maintenance employees under the superintendent, types of employees 

 and the methods of organizing and conducting maintenance work vary 

 greatly among systems of different sizes and even among systems of com- 

 parable size. This difference is due not only to difference in size but also 

 to character of development of the properties and to the intensity of use 

 of the properties. The number of maintenance employees will vary with 

 the seasons in all park systems. 



