Four environment and outdoors-oriented SNohomish County departments – with the largest being the parks department – are to be merged into a single department. | Stock Photo at Getty Images
Four environment and outdoors-oriented SNohomish County departments – with the largest being the parks department – are to be merged into a single department. | Stock Photo at Getty Images
The Snohomish County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department may soon be merged with three other departments to form a new county department focused on natural resources and conservation.
With approximately 194 full-time employees, the parks department would be joined with the Surface Water Management Division, with 95 full-time employees; the Energy and Sustainability Office, with nine full-time employees and the Agriculture Office, with one full-time employee, according to coverage by the Everett Herald.
Tom Teigen, director of the parks department, recently told the county council that there is potential in the merger for the responsibilities currently carried by the smaller departments to benefit from those responsibilities being seen to by a larger agency with more resources overall.
“There’s an opportunity in this larger structure to value those more and try to dedicate additional … human and financial resources to those endeavors,” Teigen was quoted as saying by the Herald.
Teigen said that a number of the responsibilities also fall into the same physical space, so there may be potential to eliminate overlap.
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