Letter to the Editor: Park Board President Mattingly Addresses Recent 'Misrepresentations'

On behalf of the Oswegoland Park Board, I would like to explain some of the misrepresentations of the “facts” written the past few weeks in our local papers about our staff and programs.

One “fact” reported is that the average user’s fee for all of our programs is $176 compared to other park districts up the river. Their average fees were reported as Fox Valley’s at $55, Batavia at $82, and St. Charles at $122. In 2010, OPD generated $5.8 million in program fees and pool admissions from about 95,000 participants.

As you can compute, OPD’s average user’s fee in 2010 was about $61.          

It also has been reported that our part time employees’ average salary is $47,000. In 2010, we had 251 part time employees paid about $1.65 million which computes to a yearly salary of about $6,500.

Finally, we only have one full time employee with a yearly salary more than $100,000, not the reported “6 of 49 employees are paid over $100,000 a year”.  In 2010, the total payout for 49 full time employees was $2.4 million for an average salary of $49,000.

Each of us on the Board welcomes your questions or clarifications of reported “facts”. You can contact us either by e-mail or phone which you can access at www.oswegolandpd.org or by calling (630) 554-1010. I personally can be reached at (630) 551-5895.

Bob Mattingly, President, Oswegoland Park Board