By Gene Meyer
December 11, 2009

(KansasReporter) OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - As recession forces Overland Park closer to cutting its workforce, one city council member is proposing that Kansas’ second largest city recruit unpaid volunteers to pick up some of the slack in city services.

“It makes sense,” said city councilwoman Dona Owenns, who is suggesting the city consider a plan similar to one in Plano, Texas, which authorities there estimate saved the equivalent of $1.8 million last year.

Declining sales and property tax revenues are projected to knock Overland Park’s budget $69.5 million out of balance from 2011 to 2015, City Manager John Nachbar reported earlier this week to council members. Falling retail sales and, consequently, declining sales tax revenues that are 60 percent of the city’s income are the biggest contributors to the shortfall, Nachbar said.

“And we can’t tell if we’ve hit bottom yet,” he added.

The city has tried plugging some of the gap by halting hiring and by abolishing about 40 full and part-time positions from among nearly 1,050 on the city’s payroll. But more cuts will be needed, including laying off 40 to 50 more workers, Nachbar said Friday. Overland Park last cut the equivalent of 50 full and part-time jobs from its workforce in 2002 because of projected revenue drops.

Meantime, the city also has a large population of retired professional workers and other residents who already are volunteering significant amounts of time and expertise to the city, just because they want to share, Councilwoman Owenns said.  Volunteers, for example, contributed more than 18,500 hours of labor just to the city’s Arboretum and Botanical Garden last year, doing greeting, guiding, gardening, prairie restoration and other work that would require nine full-time employees otherwise, she said.

In Plano, an upscale Dallas suburb roughly one-and-half-times larger than Overland Park, but otherwise comparable, some 6,000 volunteers a year play a vital role throughout the city government, said Robin Popik, the city’s volunteer resources supervisor.

“We use them everywhere,” Popik said.

Volunteers in Plano put in more than 95,000 hours last year staffing libraries, tending parks, tutoring children and augmenting the ranks of police, firefighters and emergency management teams, she said. Their efforts amount to a contribution equivalent to $1.76 million.  And the program, which began in 1983, continues to expand, Popik said.

“Volunteers cannot replace full-time employees, but they certainly can take up a lot of slack” Popik said. “You need the support of full-time employees, upper management and the city council to make it work.”