How Does Your Parks Department Compare? NRPA 2026 Data
Every parks director gets the question sooner or later: “How do we compare?” Councils ask it when budgets are tight, residents ask it when a playground is closed, and staff ask it when they are stretched thin.
The best national answer is NRPA’s 2026 Agency Performance Review, released in June 2026 and highlighted in NRPA’s FY2026 Annual Report as part of its push to “amplify our impact through data and storytelling.” It draws on data from more than 850 park and recreation agencies collected through NRPA Park Metrics between 2023 and 2025. The headline figure, one park for every 2,437 residents, describes the typical agency. But small communities look quite different from that typical agency, and the report breaks its figures down by population.
Small communities are not “average”
All figures below are medians, which the report uses because averages can be skewed by very large or very small agencies.
| Measure | Under 20,000 | 20,000–49,999 | 50,000–99,999 | All agencies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residents per park | 1,062 | 1,798 | 2,333 | 2,437 |
| Acres of parkland per 1,000 residents | 12.3 | 11.2 | 7.7 | 10.0 |
| Full-time-equivalent staff (FTEs) | 16.3 | 41.4 | 79.3 | 73.9 |
| FTEs per 10,000 residents | 16.0 | 11.5 | 12.2 | 9.2 |
| Operating spending per resident | $155.23 | $132.66 | $131.13 | $111.73 |
| Revenue per resident | $44.78 | $37.19 | $43.19 | $29.26 |
| Cost recovery | 26.0% | 29.6% | 33.7% | 26.0% |
| Trail miles managed | 4 | 10 | 18 | 19 |
| Programs offered per year | 70 | 228 | 468 | 300 |
| Estimated deferred maintenance | $240,000 | $500,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 |
Source: NRPA 2026 Agency Performance Review, pages 9–30.
Two patterns stand out. First, smaller communities have more parks and more parkland per resident, and more staff and higher spending per resident. That is partly arithmetic: every park needs mowing, inspection and trash pickup no matter how many people live nearby. Second, the typical agency serving under 20,000 people runs with about 16 full-time-equivalent staff. Every hour those staff spend driving to check a site, count users or confirm a repair is an hour not spent on programs.
Where staff time goes
Across all agencies, the report finds that 45% of staff work in operations and maintenance, 32% in programming and 17% in administration. Operating budgets follow the same shape: 54% goes to personnel.
That makes operations and maintenance the biggest lever most departments have. The question is not whether to maintain parks, but whether maintenance follows a fixed schedule or actual need. Restrooms cleaned on a calendar, fields watered on a timer and bins emptied on a route all cost the same whether a site was busy or empty.
Deferred maintenance is common, and often not tracked
The typical agency estimates about $1 million in deferred maintenance. For agencies serving under 20,000 people, the median is $240,000. The report also notes that tracking deferred maintenance “is not a universal practice,” and the lower quartile for every population group is $0, which may reflect agencies that do not track it at all.
A backlog you cannot quantify is hard to fund. Even a simple estimate, broken down by site and asset type, gives a council something concrete to weigh against other capital needs.
How funding works
Across agencies, 63% of operating funding comes from the general fund, 18% from earned revenue such as fees and rentals, and 10% from voter-approved special taxes or levies. Sponsorships, donations and private grants account for just 1%. Regional differences are large: an estimated 80% of agencies in the South rely on the general fund, compared with 42% in the Great Lakes region.
For most small departments, that means parks compete directly with police, fire, streets and utilities for the same dollars. Benchmarks help make that case, but local evidence of use and value carries more weight. We look at that in a companion post on making the case for park funding with local data.
Facilities: what small communities provide
The report also lists how many residents share each type of facility. For agencies serving under 20,000 people, the medians are:
- One playground per 1,866 residents (96% of all agencies have playgrounds)
- One basketball court per 4,928 residents
- One tennis court per 3,238 residents
- One pickleball court per 2,667 residents (50% of agencies offer pickleball)
- One dog park per 10,311 residents
Pickleball is a useful example. Only half of agencies report pickleball courts, but in small communities that have them, there is roughly one court per 2,667 residents. Demand for court time is a common source of complaints and scheduling conflicts, and court usage data can settle debates about adding, converting or lighting courts.
How to use these benchmarks well
Benchmarks are a starting point, not a grade. A few practical tips:
- Compare against your population group, not the all-agency median. A town of 12,000 with 1,000 residents per park is typical, not over-built.
- Use the quartiles. The full report gives lower and upper quartiles for most measures. Falling inside that range is normal.
- Pair each benchmark with a local number. “We have 14 FTEs against a median of 16.3, and visits at our two busiest parks rose this year” is a stronger statement than either number alone.
- Submit your own data through NRPA Park Metrics. More small-community data makes future benchmarks more useful for everyone in your population group.
What the benchmarks don’t measure
The Agency Performance Review tells you what you have and what you spend. It does not tell you how much each park is used, at what times or whether maintenance matches demand. The report contains no data on technology use.
That local usage data is where many small cities are starting to add low-cost tools such as trail and park counters, soil moisture sensors for irrigation and connected bins. At Varidx, that is the part we work on: helping small and mid-sized cities see how parks, trails and facilities are used so that staff time follows actual need. Whatever tools you use, the goal is the same: put your own numbers next to NRPA’s.
Sources
- NRPA, 2026 Agency Performance Review
- NRPA, New Benchmarking Report Shows One Park per 2,437 Residents (June 3, 2026)
- NRPA, FY2026 Annual Report
- NRPA, Park Metrics