City Hall has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilities used by Lawrence public school students, the city’s parks director said in a memorandum to school officials.

The memo came a month after the cash-strapped Lawrence school board directed its staff to research the possibility of collecting rental fees from community organizations, including the city, that use school property. City officials are leery of the prospect and have sought to persuade school officials they benefit from city-sponsored projects.

“If you look through these (projects), it’s impressive,” said Fred DeVictor, the city’s parks and recreation director, who publicized the April 22 memo Tuesday during a meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. “The city and the schools work a lot together.”

The memo, DeVictor said, was issued “to remind and review what’s been done.”

School board member Rich Minder said the memo was a “good start” on researching the issue. But he said the memo focused more on the cost of building pools, buildings and other facilities — and not enough on continuing costs of those projects.

“That’s where we have the real crunch,” Minder said. “It’s the ongoing cost we need to be paying attention to and accounting for in a real vigorous way.”

Joint projects

Among DeVictor’s examples of city-school cooperation:

l The city contributed $100,000 to the pool at Lawrence High School, 1901 La., in 1979. Between 1994 and 2001, the city contributed more than $45,000 a year for operation of the pool.

l The city paid $200,000 toward the construction of Langston Hughes School, 1101 George Williams Way, so the gymnasium there would be large enough for community use.

l Holcom Park Recreation Center, 2700 W. 27th St., is used for physical education classes and other meetings by the Lawrence Alternative School, 2600 W. 25th St.

Memo from Fred DeVictor on school/city cooperation (pdf) page 1 Memo from Fred DeVictor on school/city cooperation (pdf) page 2 Memo from Fred DeVictor on school/city cooperation (pdf) page 3

Lawrence Parks and Recreation would bear the brunt of any school district fee increase. According to district records, the city used school gymnasiums more than 900 times last year, mainly for youth basketball, volleyball and soccer games and practices.

Charging $20 per hour to Lawrence Parks and Recreation would raise about $60,000 annually, school officials have said.

“We aren’t inferring that if fees go up, we aren’t going to do these things,” DeVictor said. He added: “We don’t have the facilities for these programs.”

But Commissioner Boog Highberger said he would be reluctant to have the city pay a fee.

“Our staff went without a salary increase this last fiscal year, while the school employees got a healthy increase,” Highberger said. “I’m committed to seeing our employees get an increase this year.”

Officials on both sides said they wanted to continue city-school cooperation.

“We want to work together,” Minder said, “and keep working together.”