Drive to increase Parks Department budget finds wide support in Brooklyn

A drive to increase the Parks Department’s budget to at least 1% of the overall city budget is getting wide support in Brooklyn.

New Yorkers for Parks is leading the campaign, known as Play Fair for Parks, with the League of Conservation Voters and District Council 37. It points out that New York allocates a relatively small share of its budget to parks compared to other large cities. While Minneapolis’ parks budget is 5.3% of the city’s total budget, and Chicago devotes 4.3% of its budget to parks, the figure for New York City is only 0.6%.

People became especially appreciative of city parks during the COVID pandemic, when parks were one of the few places people could go. City Council Parks Committee Chair Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) told the Brooklyn Eagle that both Mayor Eric Adams and the Council have given their support to the 1% goal, and he categorized the Parks Department’s main needs as maintenance, increasing the number of employees, and increasing the city’s tree canopy.

Adam Ganser, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks and a Brooklyn resident, however, said that despite this declared support, “since the budget [negotiating] process started, we’re seeing movement in the other direction. 

“The cuts we’re seeing are not prioritizing this at all. The mayor’s preliminary budget announced in late January had $47 million in cuts to the Parks Department.” While the City Council initially supported Fair Play’s for 1,000 new Parks positions, he said, more follow-up is needed.

Historically, Ganser said, “the Parks Department was funded well above 1%.” However, during the 1970s fiscal crisis, the budget was slashed and “staffing numbers were cut by nearly half.”

The group’s report gives Brooklyn’s Red Hook Recreation Center as an example of a Parks facility that’s…