24 | 2024 National Recreation and Park Association agencies serving a population of fewer than 20,000 people, park and recreation revenue per capita is $47.71; at agencies serving 50,000 to 99,999 people it is $33.17 per capita; and at agencies in jurisdictions of more than 250,000 people it is $9.70 per capita. Another way to examine revenue is through cost recovery — revenue as a percentage of operating expenditures. The typical agency recovers a quarter of its operating expenditures from non-tax revenue. Median cost recovery varies with population size; agencies serving a population of fewer than 20,000 people recover 29.5 percent of their operating expenditures, but this figure is lower for agencies serving populations of more than 250,000 people for which recovering 17.9 percent of operating expenditures is typical. The median five-year capital budget spending across agencies of all sizes is $12 million. But the median amount depends on population size: the larger the population, the larger the five-year capital spending budget. For agencies serving fewer than 20,000 people, the median five-year capital budget spending is $1.81 million. This figure is 8 times higher for those agencies serving between 50,000 and 99,999 residents at a median of $15 million, and then reaches a median of $49 million for agencies serving more than 250,000 residents. The goal of park and recreation agencies is not only to maintain their facilities, programming and other FIGURE 22: REVENUE AS A PERCENTAGE OF OPERATING EXPENDITURES (COST RECOVERY) (PERCENTAGE OF OPERATING EXPENDITURES BY JURISDICTION POPULATION) 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0 REVENUE AS A PERCENTAGE OF OPERATING EXPENDITURES All Agencies Less Than 20,000 20,000 to 49,999 50,000 to 99,999 100,000 to 250,000 More Than 250,000 All Agencies Less Than 20,000 20,000 to 49,999 50,000 to 99,999 100,000 to 250,000 More Than 250,000 Median 25.2% 29.5% 25.9% 28.8% 22.0% 17.9% Lower Quartile 12.8 13.5 15.4 13.7 12.2 9.7 Upper Quartile 47.0 56.0 51.8 53.4 38.1 36.2 $60,000,000 $50,000,000 $40,000,000 $30,000,000 $20,000,000 $10,000,000 $0 FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL BUDGET SPENDING All Agencies Less Than 20,000 20,000 to 49,999 50,000 to 99,999 100,000 to 250,000 More Than 250,000 Median $12,000,000 $1,814,200 $6,500,000 $15,000,000 $24,284,312 $49,097,334 Lower Quartile $2,456,700 $509,192 $1,582,756 $5,355,630 $9,912,750 $18,345,000 Upper Quartile $36,058,000 $5,611,874 $15,733,740 $28,785,600 $58,187,649 $147,718,705 FIGURE 23: FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL BUDGET SPENDING (BY JURISDICTION POPULATION) All Agencies Less Than 20,000 20,000 to 49,999 50,000 to 99,999 100,000 to 250,000 More Than 250,000 Improvements Acquisition Other FIGURE 24: TARGETS FOR CAPITAL EXPENDITURES (AVERAGE PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF CAPITAL EXPENDITURES) 88% 7% 5%
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