Keeping the city working despite shrinking budgets

With the economic downturn, the Public Works Department and the Recreation Division find ways to get the city ready for the spring despite smaller budgets.

As snowy roads and parks turn to green grass and cracked pavement the Public Works Department (PWD) brings in more employees and builds to it’s ever ending list of jobs that require their attention.

“What we do in the spring time is get ready for construction season,” said Director of Public Works, Larry Cox. “Theres kind of a mix there where we are ready to fight snow and ready to make repairs in the streets and street improvements. So they overlap, it’s not like we one day shut one thing off and get ready for another.”

“Some of the first things to get ready for the construction season are summer maintenance equipment. Street Division operates street sweeper and it is winterized ... so it’s the first thing we get out,” said Cox.

During the winter months the Street Division makes temporary road repairs. Once spring rolls around more permanent fixes are put in place.

Other parts of the PWD, work on switching over with the warmer weather. Divisions like the Parks Department as well as the City Engineers both have to change mindsets as construction season moves closer.

“We have been picking up our sod damage from our plows ... We have been checking inlets for rain and snow melt. Try to finish up picnic table repairs and getting ready to put them out in the spring,” said Parks Superintendent, Don Miles. Some other springtime duties include making sure equipment is ready and tree trimming in the parks.



Despite the lengthy list of tasks for PWD, the budget for the department has remained very stagnant over the past four years. For example, the parks operation and maintenance budget has only gone up $46,260 since the 2007 budget. That may seem like a large amount, but it is only 4.22% of the 2010 budget.

The growth comes in large part from items that undoubtedly grow due to higher prices. Items like heating and electricity are big factors. This growth is offset by cuts in other regions of the departments.

This past winter the PWD has had a large unforeseen budget increase due to the snowstorm in February. “We are looking at potentially $125,000 worth of expenses over that 24 hour period,” said Cox. “We hired some contractual services that we don’t normally hire during even a pretty heavy snow storm.” The PWD has turned in the $125,000 bill to the state to hopefully get reimbursed because it was proclaimed a natural disaster.

The Parks Department has figured out one way to save a few bucks in these rough times with less flowers and having no need to buy mulch.

“They use to plant annuals in the flower beds. As we have been going along trying to save money... on labor we have been doing a lot of perennials and so we probably don’t spend 100 bucks on annuals anymore,” said Miles. “Typically we get the mulch from our forestry division who chips brush all year long.”

The shrinking budget has forced the PWD to shrink staff size and this has caused a backlog of things needing attention. “We have one less maintenance worker in our Street Division right now,” said Cox. There is also one less staff member at the airport, growing numbers of part-time employees.

“We have several years of requests for curb and sidewalk repairs in our system,” said Cox. This backlog also affects how many roads can get repaired during the construction months.

The stagnant trend in budgets can be seen in other departments. “I think it has hurt all municipalities in the state of Illinois as far as that goes,” said Recreation Superintendent Roger Sensabaugh. “We are affected but probably no more or more less than the Street Department or the Parks Department or Police and Fire. I think everyone takes a hit.”

For the Recreation Division (RD) the troubles are the same.

“[The recession] has gone on for so long right now it really is affecting our capital improvements,” said Sensabaugh. “We really haven't done anything in capital improvements in the past few years and this year, as well as next year, we will probably be running on an operational budget alone.”

Running on a minimal budget, Sensabaugh has had list of improvements that keeps growing. He hopes to get them started at some point in the future. “One thing we wanted to do for a long time would be another play feature at the water park to try to reinvent the water park a little bit,” he said. “Some ascetic things too ... We have some insulation that needs to be basically redone ... So some energy conservation things too ... Not many things make the cut. That’s just kind of where we are at.”

The RD could have raised fees to use their services to make up for the losses, but so far increases have been minimal.

“We try not to make any major fee increases if we have too,” said Sensabuagh. “But lately we just kind of felt like we really haven't wanted to rase fees or anything if we don't have to just for the simple fact that people are having a hard enough time to make ends meet, not to cut our own throat either, we still want people to participate and take advantage of the programs and facilities.”

The adopted budget for 2011 goes against the trends from the past few years. If kept the same, this will bring much needed boost in funding to the PWD. The RD is not so lucky, with many locations receiving minimal extra cash for this year.

Despite the budget troubles both the RD and the PWD are moving forward to get the city ready for the spring.

The PWD looks towards the first of April as a change over date, but this date can change and there are some jobs that start before or after that date. The RD also sees this day as the beginning of spring, but the start of summer is a more important date.

The RD eyes Memorial Day weekend as the start of summer and a large amount of jobs for the division. This day marks the opening of pools and the beach for patrons.

“With the way the school schedule they not even letting kids out of school till the first part of June,” said Sensabaugh. This problem has caused the RD to look at changing the start date, but so far no changes have been made, due to maintaining tradition.

(Blog Post) Learning about an under-noticed area of government

Over the past few weeks I have been interviewing members of the Public Works Department as well as Roger Sensabaugh, Recreation Superintendent in Galesburg.

Originally I wanted to do a story on what the departments do to get ready for the spring. This has been reworked to its current state due to some changing information. The realization that the departments don’t have a distinct switch over, its more of a rolling timeline of changing, caused the greatest issue. Another was the importance all of my interviewers noted on the budget crunch on their departments and the effect it had. This is why my project sits as a combo of these two topics.

These interviews have provided a few realizations that I did not know before starting this project.

The first major thing I noticed was the amount of work the Parks Department does during the winter months. One would think the department closes down for the most part during the winter months, but they keep themselves busy doing many different jobs. The job that surprised me most was the fact that they shovel a large percentage of the streets in Galesburg.

The next interesting thing I learned was the importance some of the employees at the Parks Department have in keeping the city clean. Jason Asbury and Brad Theobald, both natives of Galesburg, surprised me with the work ethic they had. One might think that a somewhat menial job would prevent someone from having the sense of responsibility that these two workers stated in their interviews.

The time I spent with these two individuals (less than 2 hours) was a great experience to see what the Parks Department does first hand. Most of my time spent with them they were just cleaning inlets (gutter drainage grates), but I still got a sense of duty they have to the community. Despite Asbury telling me a fake name to begin with (later corrected by his boss via e-mail) he was never disrespectful and was eager to show me one of the utility sheds where another employee, Joe Asbury, was working on making a new sign for the Water Department.

Just to clarify Joe and Jason are related, but distant relatives and not a father son combo like I originally thought when I figured out Jason’s real name.

Another interesting thing I figured out during my interviews, that was so interesting I wrote a whole story on it, was the strange separation between the Parks Department and the Recreation Department. This blurry and jagged line between them can easily confuse anyone and had me confused through a few of my interviews, if I let you listen to the questions I asked in the videos.

Overall I have learned a great deal about this under-noticed area of government and I hope you read the three stories and view the images, videos and other pieces accompanying it and grow a the same knowledge and appreciation that I have gained in the past few weeks.

More than 30 years at the Parks Department

(Caption for slideshow: Jason Asbury and Brad Theobald work to clean inlets around the City of Galesburg on Monday, Feb. 28, 2011. Also the slideshow ends with a few shots of Joe Asbury priming a replacement sign for the Water Department.)

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A deep connection to the city, a strong work ethic and a cleaner city despite smaller budgets is a daily routine for three Parks Department employees.

Jason Asbury, Brad Theobald and Joe Asbury, three full time employees with the Galesburg Parks Department, work to create a clean city for everyone to enjoy.

“I wanted to provide a service for my town to give back,” said Jason Asbury. Both Jason Asbury and Theobald grew up in Galesburg and feel a need to return the favor for what the city gave them years ago.

All three men have ten years of experience working full time with the Galesburg Parks Department under their belts. 

Joe Asbury worked with the Water Department for five years before that. This job has translated to his current job during the summer, taking care of the wading pools and the splash zone park for the Department.

Jason Asbury was a pipe welder and fitter before coming to work for the Department. “I always loved working with my hands,” said Asbury. “I love to see my product at the end of the day.” This has kept him from working on ‘paper heavy’ jobs and kept him happy doing what he does.

Theobald has been off and on with the department since 1986, working at the Butler factory in between. “It was something I always wanted to do,” he said. “I was happy when it finally worked out.”

Theobald knows first hand what troubles the city went through when Butler and Maytag closed their doors. “I try to do the best I can to beautify the city,” said Theobald. “We try to make it a city for businesses to come here.” 

Both Jason Asbury and Theobald feel a responsibility to make the city as presentable as possible to hopefully bring back some jobs. “If you look at the census, you can see the numbers dropping,” said Asbury. This makes their list of duties longer, but gives them less money to complete them.

As the city moves away from the industrial history the Parks Department has picked up the duties of cleaning city-owned lots. “The city purchased a lot of these properties when the companies left,” said Jason Asbury. “Its our job now to clean them up. Sometimes the grass has grown really high from years of neglect.”

During the winter months, the full-time staff is given a large range of jobs. “ We are kind of a jack of all trades,” said Joe Asbury. The list includes; picking up trash, cleaning inlets from leaves, trimming trees, repairing signs, plowing streets north of Fremont Street as well as downtown parking lots and clearing the piles of snow in the middle of streets after major snow accumulation.

During the record snowstorm earlier this month Jason Asbury worked 48 hours with only four hours of sleep and Theobald worked 31 hours straight with no break. This work ethic helped keep the access to the hospitals and the main streets clear enough for emergency personnel. During the snowstorm they helped rescue Ameren personnel west of the city on Main Street as well as rescuing someone who needed medical help from a home.