Districts versus Departments

Parks and recreation organizations in local government can take two forms. They can be either parks and recreation districts or parks and recreation departments. A parks and recreation district is created by law and levies its own taxes. It behaves similarly to a school district in that it can overlap with other tax-levying areas, and the revenue is intended for a special purpose. In a city someone can live in a parks district, school district, special development district, and also pay local city taxes. The taxes layer on top of each other. Districts do not need to advocate for themselves during budget season because they raise their own revenue; they don’t need to fight budget cuts like departments might.

Parks and recreation departments provide the same services and programs that departments provide, but they operate like a more traditional city entity, like a police or fire department. Like these other departments, a city’s parks and recreation department will receive a share of the city’s tax revenues to use as its budget, and is subject to changes based on city management. Departments often may advocate for the usefulness of their services to prevent budget cuts. Parks and recreation, when compared to other services cities provide such as fire, police, and public works, is often the first department to be cut when changes must be made.