How Rancho Simi frees up staff time with data instead of guesswork

Most recreation professionals didn't get into the field to spend their day buried in spreadsheets. But between registrations, billing, event logistics, and community requests, admin work has a way of taking over anyway. That tension came up throughout a recent episode of The Parks & Tech Collective, featuring Danielle June, Recreation Supervisor at Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District in Simi Valley, California.

Danielle June has spent 26 years in parks and recreation, the last 15 with Rancho Simi. Across the conversation, she walked through how a special district built around one mission—parks and rec, full stop—uses data, partnerships, and the right tools to keep programming grounded in what the community actually needs, not just what staff assumes they need.

Programming decisions should follow the data

June was direct about a habit she's built into her own decision-making: checking her instincts against the numbers before acting on them.

"Does the data that I'm pulling from our registration software match the narrative that I think?" she asked. If a program isn't landing on the day she expected, the fix isn't a guess, it's pulling the analytics and finding out what's actually happening.

The result: fewer programs built on assumptions, more built on evidence.

• Registration data shows which days and times actually work for teen programming
• Survey tools fill the gaps registration data can't answer.
• Mismatches between "what I think" and "what the data says" become the cue to adjust, not defend the original plan

A special district's whole mission is community

Because Rancho Simi isn't competing with road repairs or other city departments for budget and attention, June said the district can move faster on new programs and lean harder into partnerships. But not just any partnership.

"I want you to be at the event. I want you to add a contribution to it," she said, describing the shift from treating sponsors as a line item to treating them as collaborators who show up.

That mindset shows up in Rancho Simi's signature events—an intimate overnight family campout, a free Music in the Park concert that draws around 5,000 people, and a Snowfest where many kids touch snow for the first time. Each one is built around a different emotional payoff for attendees, not just attendance numbers.

Freeing up time is the real payoff of better tools

Rancho Simi moved to Amilia's platform around the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and June said the transition succeeded because staff understood what was in it for them and the community. Technology increased the efficiency of workflows for their agency.

"Everybody kind of wants access to their own information," she said.

Pulling a receipt at 11 p.m. after the kids are in bed, without waiting for office hours. That self-serve shift, paired with shared drives and early use of AI for drafting letters and cross-referencing data, has changed what June's day actually looks like.

She estimated that even freeing up 10 percent of her time from manual admin work would be significant. "That would make such a difference in what I can do, how I can grow our options for the community," she said—time better spent meeting nonprofits, checking in with partners, and being present at the events her team spends months building.

What this means for parks & rec teams everywhere

Danielle June's story is a reminder that technology's real value in recreation isn't the software itself—it's what staff get to do once the manual data-pulling and paperwork are off their plate. For a field built on relationships and community presence, that time back is the point.

Amilia's SmartRec platform is built around that same idea: give recreation teams self-serve registration, reporting, and automation that runs quietly in the background, so staff can spend more time in the parks and less time chasing data across disconnected tools.