Staffing And Volunteers W HETHER an agency is conducting benchmark studies or calculating the cost of its programming and operations, staffing and administrative information is critical. The NRPA database offers insight into work activities; distribution of paid and volunteer staff by function, skills, and abilities needed; ratios of staff to attendance for programming; and park acres maintained. In Figures 4 and 5, for example, the numbers of full-time-equivalent and part-time employees shown by quartile demonstrate a slight rebound. However, Figure 6 shows that despite increasing agency operating budgets (see Figure 8), the number of full-time equivalent employees is still much lower than in 2010, especially for larger agencies where FTE equivalents remain down by more than half. Full-Time Positions Authorized FIGURE 4 100 90 94 Upper Quartile Median Lower Quartile 80 70 60 56 54 50 40 30 27 24 20 10 0 8 2010 18 7 7 2011 2012 Non-Full-Time Positions Authorized FIGURE 5 350 300 315 Upper Quartile Median Lower Quartile 250 209 200 150 200 144 105 100 50 0 6 81 40 2010 2013 PARKS and RECREATION SPECIAL REPORT 32 20 2011 2012 www.nrpa.org