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The Park and Recreation Commission (PRC) met last Thursday and they covered a lot of ground, including rail trail planning which we reported on in the prior story.
But one topic stood out above all of the major projects they touched on last week: money. Or to be more precise: a profound lack of money. PRC Chair Ben Carmel noted that they have seen comments complaining about tax dollars and Park and Recreation facilities. We suspect this is related to some of the grumbling about the closure of the playground at Haskell for the Sudbury summer camps. Someone started pulling some data and Carmel tentatively noted that 0.2% of tax bills go to recreation and 0.2% of tax bills go to grounds. (0:01:50)
The Division of Local Services reports that the average single family property tax bill in Sudbury is about $15,000. That means the average household pays $30 per year for recreation and $30 a year for grounds. Much of the Park and Recreation department is operated out of enterprise funds, in which fees are collected for services, facilities use and field rentals, and then that revenue is used to maintain everything and pay for other departmental costs and salaries. But it’s even more complicated than that, because there are also revolving funds at play. One thing is very clear: the funding model for Sudbury’s Park and Recreation department is designed to create a largely self-sufficient operation that avoids drawing funding from the Town budget.
The Park and Recreation Director chimed in later to point out that it’s likely even less than .2% of tax bills, because the Field Enterprise Fund is used to pay for a portion of some Department of Public Works employee salaries and benefits. (0:12:40) That doesn’t actually reduce how much residents spend via the budget, but the Director felt that it “subsidizes” the Town budget in another area and appeared to be attempting to illustrate the point about how little the Town spends on Park and Recreation. Chair Carmel went so far as to call it “woeful.”
“But it looks like 0.2% for Recreation and 0.2% for Grounds across everyone’s tax dollars. So you can do your own calculations on how much tax you pay and what that contribution is. But it’s, um, woeful, I would say.”
National Trend, Local Flavor
Because of Covid and the ensuing construction of the new community center, it’s quite difficult to determine how much of the department’s troubles are a function of the funding model itself or the headwinds they have faced in recent years. However, those budget stresses are not entirely unique to Sudbury, as park and recreation budgets have been in decline for many years across the country.
Indeed, much of the meeting was spent lamenting some of the challenges the department is facing. Financially, revenues were down for the fiscal year and costs were up, so it looks like they’ll end up falling short of breakeven. That is likely to lead to a fee increase later this year, which they discussed at a high level. (0:11:00)
Fees are yet another tricky area to assess, because comparisons to other towns depend on how much the town is funding their department. Even the supply and demand analysis is complicated with the growing privatization of youth sports, and an explosion of high-end private facilities. For example, the FieldHouse in Sudbury is run by a company with hundreds of properties under their management across the country. So any analysis would need to compare Sudbury’s fees to similarly-funded park and recreation departments who host similar customers. And it would need to do that while ignoring private competition and the flight of youth athletes to club sports, even though they’re technically competing with them.
Suffice it to say, park and recreation departments have more competition than ever before, and that competition is stiffening as Park and Recreation budgets decline.
For Sudbury’s Park and Recreation department, we’re just scratching the surface of some of the challenges they’re facing. There were also concerns about who would maintain the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, including trash removal and pet waste, given the Park and Recreation department doesn’t have the staff or resources to take that on. As it stands, they can only afford to pay for someone to clean the existing field bathrooms three days a week and they struggle to do trash pickup; which was a point of emphasis from the Park and Recreation Director. (0:48:00)
Also on the expense side, the Atkinson Pool has been closed longer than anticipated this summer, which, in addition to lot revenue, has forced them to spend on additional equipment for water play at the camps, as well as sunscreen since the kids aren’t going into the indoor pool in the afternoon. (1:11:00)
Searching for a Cure
The Park and Recreation Commission has been looking at the funding model for the department for some time. But a clear plan of action hasn’t emerged just yet, in part because the Open Space and Recreation plan is in an epic logjam.
It appears that the PRC is committed to continuing conversations on funding and all the other challenges facing the department. In the meantime, they’re exploring ideas for articles they might put forward at Fall Town Meeting or Annual Town Meeting next spring. That could potentially include an outdoor pavilion for the Fairbank Community Center, which could serve as a home base of sorts for the summer camps, as they are a significant money maker. That could also keep the playground at Haskell open to the public all summer. But there didn’t seem to be a consensus on what, if anything, might be brought forward to a Town Meeting.
It remains unclear what, if anything, might be done to directly address the funding model of the department. For now the PRC seems to be expanding the conversation beyond their own commission.