LEONARDTOWN — The department that runs St. Mary’s County’s parks, boat landings, museums and golf course will spend the next year proving it still deserves a national seal that only about one in 50 park agencies holds.
The Department of Recreation and Parks is due for reaccreditation in 2027 by the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies, known as CAPRA, the department’s director told the county’s Recreation and Parks advisory board at its November meeting. The department is to submit its preliminary materials this month, and a three-person review team is expected to visit in late April.
For residents, the review is an outside audit of how the county manages what they use: whether fields and facilities are maintained to a written standard, whether there are current plans and safety procedures, how money is handled and how the public is consulted. The reviewers, who come from other park agencies, examine the department’s policies, tour the park system and make suggestions, the director said.
He told board members that some of them may be asked to take part.
One standard short the first time
St. Mary’s earned its first accreditation in September 2022 after about three years of preparation, a step the Chronicle reported when the review team recommended approval that spring. The department had to document compliance with 154 standards.
It met all but one, the director said, calling accreditation “the gold standard” for the field.
The bar is higher the second time. Under CAPRA’s published rules, an agency must meet every one of the standards the commission classifies as fundamental, and on reaccreditation it must also meet 112 of the 118 that are not. Accredited agencies file annual reports in between and are reviewed again every five years.
The timeline the director laid out:
- November 2026: preliminary application information submitted
- Winter: records assembled and the department’s file submitted
- Late April 2027, or close to it: on-site visit by three reviewers
He did not give a date for a final decision. The 2022 accreditation was awarded at the National Recreation and Park Association’s annual conference that September.
A small club
The director told the board that only about 2% of park and recreation agencies nationwide are accredited, that St. Mary’s was one of six in Maryland when it qualified, and that some states have none.
National figures bear that out. A May 2026 summary from the National Recreation and Park Association counts 222 accredited agencies in 38 states. When the county was recommended for approval in 2022, it was set to join five other Maryland agencies and 189 nationally, according to the Maryland Association of Counties’ account of the county’s announcement. Calvert County Parks and Recreation is among the Maryland agencies on the list; it was accredited in 2021.
St. Mary’s also has an unusual tie to the body doing the judging. Ray Bivens, the department’s director, began a term as chair of the CAPRA commission in September 2025, the county announced at the time. The 18-member commission makes the final accreditation decisions. Neither the county release nor the director’s remarks to the board addressed how the commission handles a review of its chair’s own agency.
A full plate before the visit
The review lands in a busy stretch for the department. A draft of the county’s Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan, the state-required document that sets park priorities, went to the Planning Commission on Oct. 26 with an opportunity for public comment. It goes to the Commissioners of St. Mary’s County on Nov. 17 and is due to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources by the end of the year, the director said.
Construction is also continuing on the new St. Clement’s Island Museum building, which the director said is aimed at a hard deadline of Maryland Day in March, and the rebuild of Wicomico Shores Landing is underway with a state grant. He reported at the same meeting that the department’s golf tournament raised more than $14,000 for youth sports scholarships.
The advisory board will not meet again before the paperwork is filed. Members canceled their December meeting for lack of a quorum and voted to drop the January, April, July and August meetings from the 2027 calendar, leaving February and March sessions before the review team’s expected arrival.
More about the department’s accreditation is on the national association’s CAPRA page. Recreation and Parks can be reached at 301-475-4200, ext. 1800.
