by
Eugene Pomerance
Conflict between board members and the director about
their proper roles and authorities is hardly something new.
Usually called policy vs. administration, it has been almost an
automatic topic on the programs for annual park and recreation
conferences in Illinois at least since my first one in 1959. Here
is a fresh way to look at the subject, a way that can make the
board job more meaningful.
Thirty-five years ago the board was the director in most
park districts in Illinois. Board members ran the districts by
having committee chairs be the executives for their parts of the
operation. The chair of the recreation committee hired a part-time, rarely full-time, recreation director—as often as not a gym
teacher from the junior high—and together they ran the recreation activities. The chair of the buildings and grounds committee
hired a farmer's son and they kept the parks in shape. The chair
of the finance committee hired ... and so on.
As more and more districts hired people qualified for—or
at least given the responsibility for—general executive or
management duties, the topic of policy versus administration
was a hot one.
On more than one occasion over the past thirty-plus years
I was a conference speaker. On more than one occasion I said
generally the following: The board can always claim without
argument two things for which it is responsible. It's responsible
for the budget, and it's responsible for public relations. The
board is fully responsible for the budget—for setting the total
amount and for deciding how that total is to be split among all
the things it legally can be spent on—as a matter of law. The
board is responsible for public relations—with that term having
its original meaning of all relations with the public, not just
publicity—as a matter of getting re-elected.
There is not a single decision that can't be placed in one of
those categories. All the books and the articles and the speakers
say the board should be involved in policy and the executive
should be involved in administration. But the law and self-preservation say. in effect, that budget and public relations are
policy. So if it wants to, the board can be involved in the details
of decision-making on anything—absolutely anything and
everything.
Can be involved. That doesn't mean should be involved.
Because there is broad policy, and there is detailed policy.
There is policy directed to the real goals of the district, and there
is policy directed to the nitty gritty of daily operating of the
district. And there is administration that isn't really policy at
all— although it could be called that according to the definitions
stated above about budget and public relations. Speakers like me
(and professionals too) regularly exhorted our colleagues (or
their board member bosses) to try to be broad policy makers and
to keep their hands out of the little stuff and the administration
of the district. Probably it had no effect. And there were new
board members every two years, so the exhortation was repeated
with regularity.
Through time, trained directors became the norm. [Now
they even have initials after their names.] They were taught to
have lists of goals. And lists of objectives. And to have whole
books of policies. And books, too, of procedures.
And the park districts ran smoothly. Boards dutifully
ratified goals proposed by the director. Doctored them a little.
but approved them much as they came from the textbooks. And
the same for the policies and procedures, which didn't come
from textbooks so much as from friends at other park districts.
And the regular meetings of the park board ran the same as
they always did. One, maybe two, board members studied the
check register. After reading the check register they asked an
average of 1.6 questions about it each month. One, maybe two,
board members went around and looked at the physical facilities. They asked a couple of questions, or more commonly made
a couple of suggestions. One, maybe two, board members
observed some of the recreation programs ... and so on. These
last comments are in the past tense to be kind to those—and it
wouldn't be surprising if it is the majority—whose boards still
operate that way. Or at least have a board member or two who
operate that way.
Probably there is no survey that counted this, but it is my
clear impression that real policy in the vast majority of districts
is being set by individual decisions on particular problems or
questions that happen to come up. There are nicely written
statements of missions and goals and policies. But the real
implementation, the decisions that express the essence of what
the policy really is, are made on an ad hoc basis through the
Illinois Parks and Recreation 28 January/February 1993
years—often without a full realization that it is policy that is
being made. Importantly, the board doesn't even control what
problems or issues come up for decision. Decisions concerning
priorities among, for example, kids vs. adults vs. seniors,
summer vs. winter, free vs. fee. ball-bouncing vs. leaf-raking.
etc.. are made in terms of specific individual activities that
exist or are newly proposed.
Often—maybe even most often—those decisions are made
as a reaction to which group of
residents hit on the board last.
There is precious little time
devoted to a think-tank type
operation in which the board
members discuss their philosophy and the reasons they are
making those ad hoc decisions that set priorities. Priorities are
policies.
Occasionally, a problem comes up that allows the board to
think in basic terms. We had one in Elmhurst a couple of years
ago when the new safety rules were promulgated about three-meter diving boards at the swimming pools. Our old pools
didn't quite adhere to a strict reading of the rules. Our diving
hoppers were a few inches too shallow or too short or something,
but we could be grandfathered in if we chose. As we debated, we
realized the choice represented a relatively simple difference.
Simple to state; not necessarily simple to decide. We believe one
of our duties—that is one of our goals — is to provide safe
programs. Another of our goals is to provide opportunities for
fun, and the high dives arc one of the most fun things to do at
our old pools that don't have water slides. The decision-making
wasn't easy. but at least in that case we made it in terms of a basic
policy consideration—fun versus detailed safety standards.
Unfortunately, most of the time the decision-making is a rather
narrowly focused response to resident objections or requests, or
has to do with issues that are not so clear-cut as involving basic
goals of the district.
For many board members, the historical kind of operation
suits them just fine. They like to spend their time studying the
bids that arc received, criticizing the use of 10-10-10 fertilizer,
tinkering with the budget or the list of recreation offerings
because that way they are "watching out for the interests of the
voters of the District who put us here." Most especially they like
sitting on the grievance board, where they can listen to individual residents, or great hordes of residents, and then play the
role of jury and judge and make momentous decisions—
decisions that may or may not agree with the written policies,
and are efficient only in the sense that they keep the aggressive
residents off their backs. They don't usually talk of it as keeping
the residents off their backs; they talk of it as being "responsive
to the voters."
Other board members wanted to change. They—I should
ay we. because I count myself among them—wanted to let the
director scope the checks, let the professional staff look at the
ids and select the trees and the fertilizer and the mowing
machines and the rowing machines and which recreation
programs to offer. We wanted to spend our time thinking about
that our park district is all about. Why is the park district here?
that should be different in the community and in the lives of
"It's not enough to
decide; you must be
able to explain your
decision to the
next board member
who joins your group..."
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its residents because of our operation? What should be the
relative application of the district's resources—both time and
money resources—among fun, fitness, education, ecology,
conservation, beauty, urban form, nature appreciation, art
appreciation, and so forth? What should be the relative application of our resources between
the rich and the poor, the old
and the young, males and females. and so forth? Should we
offer only a floor of basic recreation programming that we
can run with the tax dollars, or
should we add progressively
more that require progressively
more fees and squeeze some
people out? Should we let the public come to us or should we
employ modern marketing techniques and persuade them to
patronize us? Each decision—whether it's this or that. or how
much of this and how much of that—needs to be backed up by
the "why." It's not enough to decide; you must be able to explain
your decision to the next board member who joins your group
and to the next resident who asks. That takes time. It takes
mental energy. Because you are not the only person on the
board, it takes discussion and education and argument and
persuasion. And it takes learning to lose.
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A part of this is the concept of not just listening to what the
residents—the voters—want now but rather thinking about
what the district really ought to do for today's residents and for
future residents and then leading today's residents to agree and
to accept it. That's called leadership, and if the board doesn't do
that, if all you do is listen to today's residents and what they
currently think, you might as well hire the Gallup poll to run
your operation and spend your own time as a volunteer elsewhere.
At the Elmhurst Park District—where I've served off and
on through losses and wins in elections since 1955—some on
our board decided a few years ago we wanted to change. To
change to a system in which we limited our service as board
members to thinking, and to establishing real goals, and to
leading. But we didn't have a good road map. a good procedure
to follow, a well-thought-out series of steps that would lead us
to where we wanted to be. So we remained frustrated.
A personnel psychologist in Indiana noted the same problem. There are many books on management, but no how-to
books on the specific task of establishing goals, and policies to
implement them. Administration is covered in many textbooks,
boardsmanship is not. So this fellow developed a set of procedures. His name is John Carver and he has been on National
Recreation and Park Association conferences and NRPA-sponsored nationwide satellite presentations over the past several
years.
This article is not presented to tout John Carver. It is
presented to tout the kind of system he offers. The point is no
one ever got really good at a musical instrument, or a sport, or
tree pruning, or teaching, or whatever. without some training.
some instruction, some coaching. Just so, to be a policy-maker
you need some training, some instruction, some methods to
follow. Do it by going to school or seminars, do it by self-instruction from a manual, do it by observing others who are
Illinois Parks and Recreation 29 January/February 1993
expert. Or much better, do it by participating in an on-the-job
experience.
We at the Elmhurst Park District—as did the Naperville
Park District before us—adopted the Carver method. He's
thought it through. He's worked at an analysis of the governance
process and has modified it with others in a variety of fields. He
now has direct experience in our field—in public parks and
recreation. Importantly, he has a training procedure to get
anyone started.
We hired him to teach us the principles. You can get the
essence of that inexpensively by reading one of his books or
getting one of his videotapes—or borrow ing ours. We hired him
for a few days as a facilitator as we developed the less important
parts of the whole program—the necessary policies having to do
with executive limitations, monitoring the executive's performance and so on. We
worked on the really
critical policies—the
ones having to do with
the ultimate goals of our
district—largely by ourselves. We thrashed
around with different
approaches to get there.
Some of our board members individually drafted
sets of goals, or "ends" as Carver calls them. Our staff drafted a set. Carver led us
through a work-session in which we started mainly with our
right brains to throw out ideas and then shifted to our left brains
to put all the ideas into one logical list that encompassed all
those that we agreed on, each in just a few key words. Later, we
tried having individual board members lead us to developing
sub-ends to explain the few words that stated the basic goals.
That didn't work well for us. So we went back to a kind of
brainstorming. It really doesn't matter how we got to where we
are. Your experiences and personalities are likely different from
ours so you likely need a different method.
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"Our real job is to
set the course of the district,
the ends
we want to
reach, the goals we
want to
achieve. To
decide why we are
here, what
should be
different."
|
The critical thing is, we got there—at least for now. We're
sure we'll make some changes, but we agreed on eight basic
ends or goals, and enough sub-goals to explain to ourselves and
the staff and anyone else what we mean by the basic statements.
Then we set priorities among the goals, on a more-or-less
quantified basis. We know we can do better at that, but we're
still crawling.
Most importantly we now have a strategy, and we have a
method, that sets the stage for the board to do the board's work— goal-setting at the beginning and evaluation at the end—while
the director is held responsible for doing what is necessary to
achieve those goals within both the budget and the other
constraints set for him or her. The board sets the ends; the
director selects the means. For example, our board has decided
we should have a written operational policy on environmental
protection, but the board won't write it or even approve it; we
believe the director is competent to do that detailed job. As
another example, residents with suggestions or complaints now
come to the board last—if at all— rather than first. Our director
makes the decisions on old arguments and new problems within
the guidelines dictated by the ends and the restrictive policies
the board has established for him, just as happens with a private
sector company. Only if someone believes the director's decision is not a reasonable interpretation of the policies, or they
wish to petition the board to change the policies, can they take
up the board's time at a board meeting.
The monthly staff report is now organized by the eight basic
ends or goals of the district so the board can see what's being
done toward achieving each one.
We're making more rapid progress than expected in getting our budget organized that way too. Just as a project-oriented
budget is better for serious planning purposes than a traditional
line-item budget, so a goal-oriented budget is better than a
project-oriented one. The director will have the old line-item
budget that he feels he needs to keep daily tabs on the workings
of the district, but
through the miracle of
computer spreadsheet
technology the line-item budget can be
transformed into a
goal-oriented budget
whenever the right button is pressed. We all
will look at the proposed goal-oriented
budget at the beginning
of each year's budget work. We on the board will add here and
subtract there in terms of broad goals or ends of the district. If
we wish, we'll add and subtract among the more detailed goals
as well—without, I hope, going too far into minute detail. Then
we'll turn it back to the director to work out what he will cut and
add to make the final budget be divided as the board says it
should be.
We on the board won't decide between in-house vs. contract
labor. We won't decide between floor aerobics and water
aerobics, or between reel and rotary mowers. What we will have
decided, however, are the basic questions of priorities between
fun and beauty (or fun and safety), between health and art
appreciation, how much of our land assets should be devoted to
shaping urban form and how much to developing pride in
community, and other things like that.
The whole process is teaching each one of us on the board
to think in broad policy terms. Teaching us to accept that while
we believe we might be better at all decision making than our
director is, by not getting involved with administrative minutiae
we can have the time to think about our real job. Our real job is
to set the course of the district, the ends we want to reach, the
goals we want to achieve. To decide why we are here, what
should be different in the community and in the lives of its
residents because of the operation of the park district.
Someone ought to do that hard work, we were elected to do
it, and this process makes it a possibility.
About the Author
Eugene Pomerance is a commissioner of the Elmhurst
Park District and a past-president of IAPD.
Illinois Parks and Recreation 30 January/February 1993