photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Community Building at 115 W. 11th St. is pictured on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021.

The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department is proposing a daily user fee for the city’s four recreation centers, which have traditionally been free to access.

The new entrance fee is part of a larger proposal that would increase nearly all of the department’s 1,500 fees by 10% to 30% and was presented to the Parks and Rec advisory board at its meeting this week. The department provided an example of a $2 daily fee and is proposing that all fee changes go into effect on Feb. 1.

“We have analyzed every single fee, and there will be a change in almost every single one,” Lindsay Hart, assistant director of recreation, told the board Monday. “So we are trying to increase everything.”

As part of its annual budget process, the Lawrence City Commission approved a $1.2 million increase in parks and recreation fees for 2023. Finance Director Jeremy Willmoth said at the time that the details of those fees would be determined later. There were mixed thoughts from the parks and rec board, which has yet to draft its recommendation. Though entrance fees would be a departure from the city’s long-held practice of maintaining rec centers as free and open to the public, it is unclear whether the City Commission will have a say in the matter.

The city is proposing the fee increases to meet new revenue goals the city set for the department. The increases would affect areas as diverse as summer camps, sports leagues, pool entrance fees, swimming lessons, golf, cemetery plots, and various facility rentals. Hart said the department was proposing the entrance fee because even with the proposed increase in existing fees, the department would still be $1.8 million to $2 million short of its revenue goal.

Specifically, the presentation states the department’s goal is to increase its revenue to $6.45 million for 2023, which is equal to 34% of the department’s projected expenditures of $18.88 million. The 2022 budget called for the department to collect $4.61 million in revenue, which is equal to 26% of the department’s projected expenditures of about $17.5 million. However, the actual revenue the city currently estimates it will collect this year has fallen short of that goal, coming in at about $3.7 million. The parks and recreation funds are not enterprise funds, which means the fees they charge to residents don’t cover the personnel, maintenance and other costs of operating the service. Many of the department’s services are seen as community goods and are subsidized either in full or in part by tax dollars.

Based on current attendance rates, the department estimates the $2 entrance fee could provide an additional $500,000 to $750,000 of new revenue. The presentation also notes the possibility of annual family passes, but does not indicate how much the passes would cost.

Board feedback

Board members shared mixed opinions about the rec center entrance fee proposal, with some expressing strong concerns about equity and the potential for the fees to shut out low-income residents.

The staff proposal includes a $55,000 increase in funding for youth and all-ages scholarships, with recipients also receiving free entry to rec centers. But board member Marilyn Hull said she could think of a lot of different situations where low-income people might not apply for those scholarships and instead would just stop using the rec centers.

“My biggest interest has always been maintaining access for low-income populations,” Hull said. “I’m not persuaded that the wee folks scholarship fund and the adult scholarship fund are going to completely address the inequities that are going to take place if, say, you start charging fees for entry into rec centers. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to go through the red tape of applying for scholarships.”

As city staff members work further on the proposal, Hull said she was interested in a more robust equity plan that covers not only people who enroll in programs, but those who come to open gym, open swim, and other such activities. Hull also said fees are not the only way for the city to reduce the gap between its expenses and revenues.

Board members Andrea Chavez and Val Renault both said they agreed with Hull’s concerns about equity, with Renault also encouraging the city to seek other revenue sources beyond fees, such as sponsorships. Board member John Nalbandian said that he was reluctant to charge admission for facilities that are currently free, but that he would consider it, and that when the city looks to how other communities handle fees, it should also consider equity. Board member Pat Phillips said people who can’t afford to pay should not be charged, but she was not opposed to charging those who could pay.

“I think staying away from a fee to use our facilities is staying away from a sustainable revenue,” Phillips said.

Lawrence resident Steven Koprince said he uses Sports Pavilion Lawrence about five days per week, and emphasized that someone who used the rec centers as much as him would pay around $500 annually. Koprince said that would discourage regular users and raise equity issues in the community, and that the city should be able to show the community that it had pursued all other options first, including sponsorships.

“Some of the folks I’m there with are retirees on fixed incomes, they’re single parents who are struggling to pay the bills,” Koprince said. “There are all walks of the community here who have the chance to exercise at the East Lawrence Rec Center, or at SPL or at the Community Building, that we might be shutting out.”

Koprince was one of only two members of the public to comment at the meeting (the other person had concerns about increasing golf course fees). Board Chair Jacki Becker said transparency was important, and the community should have access to all 1,500 proposed fee increases — some examples were included in the presentation but not a complete listing — and there needed to be more community engagement than what the board got Monday. Nalbandian asked whether public engagement ought to occur at the board or with the City Commission.

In response, Parks and Recreation Director Derek Rogers said city code did not require the commission to approve the fee proposal, as fees are set at the department level. Rogers said city staff could receive a recommendation from the board and after that approve the new fees administratively. The Parks and Rec board is a community advisory board appointed by the commission, and its recommendations often go to the commission for consideration. Rogers said he wasn’t saying that the topic couldn’t go to the commission, but the plan was to make the new fees effective Feb. 1, and if that date is delayed it will only contribute to the department’s funding gap.

“This gap is not going to get any smaller,” he said.

Apart from the new rec center entrance fees and other fee increases, other options the department will consider include a nonresident rec center rate for people who live outside Douglas County; more special events such as adult swim or fun runs; and other new fees, such as rental fees for practice fields and entrance fees for the wading pool in South Park, according to the presentation.

The process

Toward the beginning of the department’s budget review, Rogers said that rec center entrance fees were possible, but were at the bottom of the list of what the department would consider, as the Journal-World reported. Rogers said in an email Thursday that after the department reviewed its cost-recovery model, participation, and market rates, the proposed fee increases were not enough to meet budget expectations.

“Based on actual revenues below budget for 2022 and 2023, we are now at the point that recreation entry fees need to be considered,” Rogers said.

Rogers also said entry fees have been discussed as an option for the Prairie Park Nature Center — which the 2022 recommended budget originally called for closing — and that as fees were reviewed, staff discussed the inconsistency of having entry fees at the nature center and the swimming pools but not at recreation centers. He said the $2 fee was an example brought forward for discussion of what might be charged for a daily fee, and that other options would continue to be discussed.

Regarding Hull’s concern that the scholarship application and documentation process could deter some low-income people from accessing rec centers, Rogers said should entry fees be implemented, the department would work closely with its marketing team “to educate the community on the processes and encourage people to apply.”

The Journal-World also requested the full document of 1,500 potential fee increases, and Rogers said the department is working to put them in a single document/format that will be easy to view. He said the document would be shared once complete.

As part of Monday’s meeting, the board formed a task force to consider the fee increases. Rogers said department staff would work alongside the task force to consider the fee proposal; develop potential options for daily entry fees and/or annual passes; and determine the best way to share the proposed fee increases with the community for input.

Rogers added that over the past two years, as the city focused on community health and safety through the pandemic, it did not increase fees even though the cost of programming continued to increase.

“Fee increases are needed now to sustain the parks and recreation programs that make Lawrence a community where all enjoy life and feel at home,” Rogers said, referencing a component of the city’s strategic plan.

Rogers said the Parks and Rec Advisory Board task force would be meeting with staff early next week, and staff will present the draft recommendations at the Jan. 9 board meeting.