photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A basketball sits on the floor of the empty gym at the Community Building in downtown Lawrence on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. Starting next year, the gym will no longer be available for free play.

After Lawrence City Commission candidates got an earful on the campaign trail about pending fees to enter the city’s recreation centers, the commission is going to reconsider the fee issue at its Tuesday meeting.

Voters in November elected two newcomers to the commission — Mike Courtney and Kristine Polian — who both expressed opposition to the city’s plans to begin charging entrance fees to the city’s recreation centers, with the fees set to begin next month.

Tuesday’s meeting — just the third for the new commissioners — is the last City Commission meeting before those fees are set to begin on Jan. 5. Despite the fees already being approved in September as part of the city’s 2026 budget process, the item is back on the city’s agenda to confirm that the new City Commission is still on board with the fees.

The math on that is not entirely clear. Courtney and Polian both campaigned heavily against the fees during their campaigns, however, they are only two of five commissioners. It would take three commissioners in opposition of the fees to scrap the program. The three incumbent commissioners all voted for the city budget that included the fee system for recreation centers.

But that’s not to say the fees have been popular with the three incumbent commissioners. Rather, they decided the fees were better than making deep cuts to the city’s parks and recreation department and preferable to raising the city’s property tax rate to cover the department’s expenses.

The city’s property tax rate already has been set for the 2026 budget, but the prospect of cutting the budget of the parks and recreation department is still a possibility, if commissioners decide to scrap the fee proposal.

The current plan anticipates the fee program will generate $700,000 per year in new revenue for the parks and recreation department.

“If these fees are not implemented, an equivalent amount of revenue from other resources or expenditure reductions would be necessary to maintain a balanced budget,” a staff memo to city commissioners states.

The other option is that commissioners could choose to run a budget deficit in 2026 using fund balances that the city sets aside for unforeseen expenses. But both City Manager Craig Owens and commissioners have expressed concern about the frequency of which city budgets have been out of balance and have warned that the practice isn’t sustainable.

If a majority of commissioners do want to get rid of the fees, they will have decisions to make about whether they want to get rid of all of them or only a portion of them. The fee that has drawn the sharpest pushback is a monthly membership fee that would be required for residents older than 17 who want to use the recreation centers’ exercise rooms and other amenities. The city has set those fees at $12 per month or $120 a year for individual adults, $20 per month or $200 per year for families, and $8 per month or $80 per year for seniors. The proposal also calls for higher fees for individuals who do not live within the Lawrence city limits. Whether commissioners also want to eliminate the fee proposal for nonresidents is a question.

Another question involves a separate, less-talked-about fee. The city also is proposing a new tournament entrance fee at Sports Pavilion Lawrence, the multi-gym fieldhouse at Rock Chalk Park that hosts a variety of basketball and volleyball tournaments many weekends that draw players and spectators from across the region. Those tournaments often include a spectator entrance fee, but those fees are charged by the private operators of those tournaments, who pay the city a lease fee for the facilities. The proposal would add a new fee on top of that entrance fee, presumably.

photo by: Bremen Keasey

Sports Pavilion Lawrence is one of the city’s four recreation centers.

The city memo doesn’t provide many details about what levels those new fees would be set at, as tournament types and sizes vary at Sports Pavilion Lawrence, but the memo does estimate the spectator fees are expected to generate $250,000 of new revenue for the city. Whether that fee also would be on the chopping block is an item up for discussion.

Additionally, the commission will have a decision to make about the future of the Community Building in downtown Lawrence. The old building at 115 W. 11th Street has a gym and several rooms for classes and other such activities. The city announced in October that the building, beginning in 2026, no longer would be open for general entrance by the public, which often used the gym for pick-up basketball games and other play. The building could be used for special events or classes held by the parks and recreation department.

Commissioners at their Tuesday meeting could choose to reverse that decision as well. If commissioners want to keep the building fully open, however, the city memo says it would require $50,000 in new money, or cuts from another part of the budget, to pay for the operations.

Also likely on the table for discussion on Tuesday are what type of cuts would be needed in the parks and recreation department if commissioners scrap the fee program. In a July presentation to commissioners, department leaders placed the potential cuts in four categories based upon which activities were likely to see the deepest cuts.

Recreation, health and wellness activities, plus Eagle Bend Golf Course operations were in the category likely to see some of the deepest cuts, according to that presentation. The next most likely set of cuts involved parks, trails, open space, recreation center operations, environmental education, and cemetery operations. Below that category was one that included the city’s swimming pool operations, urban forestry and right-of-way management. Youth and adult sports were in the category likely to see the least amount of cuts.

Despite the potential for cuts, the idea of membership fees at the recreation centers has shown all the signs of being deeply unpopular with the public. In addition to Courtney and Polian winning the top two positions in the November election, the third-place finisher — former City Commissioner Bob Schumm — also campaigned heavily against the fee idea. Schumm, who was on the commission when Rock Chalk Park was built, said the fee proposal amounted to a broken promise because city officials specifically said they would not charge fees at Sports Pavilion Lawrence, since the project was being funded with local sales tax dollars.

Additionally, a city-conducted survey also showed the fee idea to be an unpopular one. City officials in July shared the results of a city survey that found 61% of respondents strongly opposed the fee idea, while another 20% somewhat opposed the fee idea. Only 13% of respondents expressed some level of support for the fees.

City staff members continued to push ahead with the fee proposal, noting that many area communities — ranging from Eudora to Overland Park — charge membership fees for access to recreation centers.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The East Lawrence Recreation Center is pictured Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025.