Local parks, sports facilities, and public event spaces play an integral role in your citizens’ quality of life. Yet if your parks and recreation department isn’t using modern workflows, things like field rentals, park infrastructure maintenance, and the building, maintenance, and use of new recreation infrastructure can be slow moving. That can hinder both the local quality of life and economic development.
Fortunately, modern parks and recreation software is designed to maximize productivity and encourage usage of local parks and fields for fun events, sports leagues, and improvement of your community-members’ health, all while stimulating the local economy. Follow along for tips for modernizing your parks & rec workflows, and how government technology can help.
The parks and recreation department is in charge of managing and maintaining local public parks and spaces that are used for recreational purposes like exercise and socializing. Key aspects of the day-to-day operations of the parks and recreation department include:
The department allocates budgets towards these endeavors and is required to maintain public record storage of parks and recreation related paperwork.
Investing in local public spaces like parks and event spaces is integral to the local quality of life in your community. Here are a few reasons why:
Your parks and recreation department does everything from building and maintaining recreational areas to renting out public spaces for sports and events.
Here are a variety of ways you can handle these tasks in a more efficient manner with automation and improved workflows via parks and rec software.
Your parks and rec department is constantly receiving and approving permit applications. Let citizens and businesses reserve public spaces with digital applications right from your government website, including:
Once a permit is received, your government officials can digitally approve the application, or provide a reason for denial and let them reapply.
Read on for more info about How Digital Permitting Systems Work.
When a space is reserved, the online scheduling platform will update in real time. Sports coaches, event planners, etc. will be able to see if their preferred time slot for a space rental is available or not, ensuring that there will never be an instance of an accidental double booking that could previously occur with human error. Clerical parks and recreation officials will no longer need to be bogged down helping citizens reserve spaces, and can prioritize other crucial to-dos instead.
Your citizens expect their parks and public spaces to be well-maintained to preserve nature and keep fields safe to play on.
Government scheduling software can automate notifications for critical inspections and recurring maintenance projects to relevant officials in the parks and recs department and related departments like the department of public works. Once the relevant official is notified, they will be expected to schedule the inspection or asset maintenance in the near future. These notifications hold government workers accountable and ensure that no critical parks and rec infrastructure becomes inadequate for public use due to a lack of maintenance.
Consider our guide on Local Government Pool & Aquatic Facility Construction & Inspection Strategy for examples of how to prioritize inspection scheduling ahead of time.
Once your inspections are scheduled, your inspectors can utilize mobile inspection forms directly from a tablet via the GovInspect platform. Using a government mobile field device to perform inspections of local parks and facilities ensures that the inspection is timely and thorough, and the forms and related paperwork are instantly accessible to relevant officials from the cloud.
There are thousands of documents that fall under your department’s purview, from permit applications to asset maintenance reports to zoning permits and beyond.
Keeping all of these files organized, and finding a particular document on the fly, is inefficient and downright difficult with paper-based filing. Luckily, you can embrace paperless governance and track down records in a few clicks by moving your record storage to the cloud.
As soon as an application is submitted from your government website or a government official performs maintenance on a public space, the digital records will be automatically saved in the government cloud and made accessible to all relevant parks and rec officials (and every other relevant municipal or county government department official).
Learn more about How Cloud-Based Government Data Storage Works.
Every time a space is being reserved, government software is collecting real-time data about which spaces are being utilized and for what purposes.
Insightful government analytics reporting will showcase the most popular types of sports and activities in your neighborhood, and allow you to make educated decisions about how to use existing spaces as well as prioritize future public spaces to build.
GovPilot keeps a digital record of all relevant private-sector partners your government has worked with or previously received proposals from.
Whenever a new project arises that requires contractors, your parks and rec department can send out digital requests-for-proposal and have contractors submit proposals online.
Correspondence can be streamlined within the parks and recreation department, with directly related departments like the DPW and economic development department, as well as private-sector partners and citizens with a digital government communications channel. With GovPilot, government officials can communicate and pass along critical public records and information via a simplified text-based platform.
Learn more about Streamlining Government Communications in the parks and rec department and beyond.
After several years of limited socialization during the pandemic, Americans are eager to get back to attending community events and utilizing public spaces. Your local government needs to prioritize the parks and recreation department to ensure that there are sufficient public spaces for exercise and community gatherings that truly make your neighborhood a community.
Parks and recreation software can speed up permit approval processes, ensure public spaces are being well maintained and inspected, and can store all of the critical paperwork related to space rentals, organized sports, inspections, etc. in the easy-to-navigate government cloud.
For help making your parks and rec digital transformation with GovPilot, book a free demo.
Your local government can utilize federal and state grants to fund both physical public facility infrastructure projects as well as digital infrastructure to modernize parks and recreation workflows.
Government software saves time and money for the parks and recreation department by automating tedious processes and collecting insightful data.
Here are a few ways parks and recreation software can benefit your department:
Popular use cases for available public land include:
Dog parks and animal friendly zones: these areas of your locality should be prioritized to give all of the animal lovers/pet owners safe places to bring their animals. Check out our resource for more information on Modern Animal Control Strategies For Local Governments.
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