Faced with a long list of needs but a tight budget, Madison's Parks Division is increasingly looking to citizens and private donors for help.

The park system has become more stressed in recent years as it has added acres but cut staff, and officials say they have been forced to make tough choices about where to scale back maintenance.

They've also made it clear that any new major projects will need private-sector benefactors if they are to become a reality.

"That's our philosophy for how to continue a parks system that's above average," said Parks Development Manager Si Widstrand.

Parks employees mowed 480 more acres and maintained 63 more tennis courts, 95 more basketball courts and 51 more playgrounds in 2000 than they did in 1975.

But Widstrand said the system's operational budget "probably hasn't kept up with our expansion."

"We have infrastructural challenges everywhere," said Bill Barker, president of the Board of Park Commissioners. "The city and the economy are on a trajectory now where we're going to have to make due with less financial resources."

Newly hired Parks Superintendant Kevin Briski, who took over June 2, seems to know this, and his past fundraising experience while director of parks and recreation for Escambia County, Fla., was part of the reason he was hired, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said.

The reliance of public parks systems on private donations, rather than just tax dollars, is a "national trend," said the 46-year-old Briski, who lauds Madison's "vast number and vast array of park properties," as well as its hard-working park employees.

He is short on details when it comes to specific capital projects to improve the system, however, preferring instead to focus on the need to maintain what Madison already has and talking a lot about expanding opportunities for park lovers to give back.

There have been some notable successes, including the $2.8 million donation from Irwin and Robert Goodman that paid for half of the city's first public swimming pool, Goodman Pool, which opened in 2006.

More recently, developer Terrence Wall agreed to pay for the preliminary design study to build a new shelter at Tenney Park on the Near East Side and Madison Gas & Electric has agreed to pay for a consultant to design a plan for the proposed Central Park.

Briski also talks a lot about the 25-year-old People for Parks program, which offers residents a way to donate amenities to local parks or their time to pulling weeds or doing other maintenance.

"We need to bring community members into the park system," said Ald. Michael Schumacher, 18th District, a member of the park board.

Briski won't lack for ideas on how to expand or renovate the system. There is no shortage of improvements park lovers would like to see — assuming they can be paid for.

Central Park, proposed for the Near East Side, could include the city's first skate park, and there's been talk of adding another city pool at Warner Park on the North Side.

Then there is more of what Madison has already, including dog parks, play equipment and shelters, according to Susan Schmitz, president of the board of the Madison Parks Foundation, which helps neighborhood groups raise money for park improvements.

Also on the to-do list are replacing the Warner Park parking lot, which Widstrand said is "all falling apart," and the leaking 80-year-old irrigation system at Forest Hill Cemetery.

"It is a huge problem that we have things that need to be maintained that are deteriorating," Widstrand said. "We kind of put money in the budget every year for what's the worst thing on the list."

The Parks Division has taken steps to save money — by cutting back on trimming around fences and trees, leaving some skating rinks closed in the winter and eliminating small improvement projects at local parks, Widstrand said.

Perhaps the most controversial move has been to reduce how often and how many acres of parkland it mows. The "low mow" approach is in line with a Parks Division goal to have about one-third of its land remain as prairie or in a more natural, less manicured state, but it also saves money on gas.

Briski said there are no current plans to change the policy, although he described it as "still under review."

From 2003 to 2008, the parks operating budget increased by 13.7 percent. This year, it's about $14.5 million. Almost half of that goes to day-to-day maintenance such as mowing, snow removal and cleaning; another $3 million goes to trim, plant and otherwise take care of the park system's trees.

But that overall budget increase is less than half that seen by the fire and police departments over the same period. They saw increases of 33 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the number of full-time equivalent positions in the parks division has shrunk from 153.5 to 147.3 in the last five years.

And this year, Cieslewicz has asked all city departments to come up with a baseline of what they think they need, then find a way to cut 5 percent from that.

In this context, the Madison Parks Foundation could play a larger role in the future viability of the parks system.

The six-year-old foundation — brainchild of Briski's predecessor, Jim Morgan, who retired in January — so far has acted mainly as a pass-through, tax-deductable funding mechanism for people interested in raising money for park improvements, said the vice president of its board of directors, Dorothy Borchardt.

The foundation has started to build an endowment that board president Schmitz hopes someday will provide enough in interest to fund matching grants for park improvements. She said the fund now has about $170,000.

Don Last, a member of the board of the Madison Parks Foundation and the first president of the foundation, said that when Madisonians travel, they should take note of the parks systems of in other, similar cities and "appreciate the tremendous gems that we have here."

With that in mind, the challenge for park backers will be to "engender some philanthropic feelings," he said.