It’s an 18-hole municipal golf course that is spending more money than it is taking in, and city officials have had to use tax revenue to keep the course operating.

Sound familiar? It’s not Lawrence’s Eagle Bend Golf Course. It’s the Cypress Ridge Golf Course, formerly known as the Topeka Public Golf Course. But Topeka officials have begun studying whether the management of the course would be better in private hands. In February, they agreed to request proposals from private management companies to run the course. That process is still under way.

The Topeka process has raised questions about whether Lawrence should follow suit. The five candidates for the Lawrence City Commission are split on the issue.

“I think we need to look at it,” said Jim Carpenter, one of five candidates vying for three at-large seats on the commission. “I’m not saying it is something that will happen because I don’t have all the information, but it seems like we should look into it.

“The problem is that it is losing money, and it is not like some other things that lose money. The T (the city’s public transportation system) loses money, but it really has a greater public good. A golf course is purely recreational.”

City officials in December agreed to raise green fees by $2 per 18 holes in an effort to make up an about $100,000 budget shortfall at the course.

The fee increase is projected to raise an additional $50,000 in revenue for the course, while Eagle Bend officials hope an improvement in weather will turn out more golfers to provide enough of a boost to make up the rest of the shortfall.

City Commissioner David Schauner, who is running for re-election, said he was skeptical the fee increase would improve the course’s financial situation because the $2 increase could cause more golfers to avoid the course. Like Carpenter, he said he was willing to at least look at the privatization option.

“It may end up being unworkable, but it seems like part of our due diligence would be to study it,” Schauner said.

Sean Richardson watches his ball stop just shy of the hole at Eagle Bend Golf Course. Richardson, a Kansas University senior and baseball player from Vista, Calif., played with two teammates Tuesday at the course. Some candidates for City Commission want the city to look at privatizing the course, which the city has had to subsidize to cover its losses.

The other three commission candidates all expressed reservations about privatization.

Tom Bracciano, who is involved in the golf course as a member of the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, said city residents needed to be patient with the course, which was built in 1998.

“We have had some bad luck with the weather in terms of golfing lately,” Bracciano said. “I think we need to give the golf course more of a chance at this point before we start talking about privatizing it.”

Commissioner Sue Hack, who is seeking re-election, and candidate Mike Amyx also said they were concerned about the city’s ability to keep the golf course affordable to area residents if it were privatized.

“If you are going to turn it over to someone else to operate, I think you have to give them every opportunity to make as much money as they can,” Amyx said.

Any privatization of Eagle Bend likely would be tricky. The course is on property owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and thus the property could not be sold. The city also is still paying $320,000 a year in bond payments related to the construction of Eagle Bend. That debt won’t be retired until 2016.

Any private company would be unlikely to absorb that debt, said Ed White, owner of the Orchards Golf Course, 3000 Bob Billings Parkway. White also said he doubted any private company could generate enough efficiencies or economies of scale to make the course profitable.

“I just don’t see that a private person would come in there and take the risk, unless the city says there would be no money down and no risk,” White said. “Then anybody would do it, but I don’t think that is very realistic.

“I think the city is stuck with it.”