School District pools are proving to be a drain on education funding. Administrators are now looking at ways to make them more efficient through possibly increasing fees and cutting jobs…
Arness: “I want to make clear there is no part of that conversation that includes closing any pools.”
School Board President Joe Arness assured an anxious public that FY15’s talk of closing pools will not be part of this budget cycle.
But something needs to be done.
Arness: “Currently the best estimate, and it is an estimate because the largest expense in a pool is heating it and those pools are not metered separately so we don’t have a hard dollar amount of what it costs us to keep those pools warm, but the best estimate that we’ve been able to come up with is about an $800,000 a year deficit to operate the, I believe, it’s 5 pools in the district.”
The Board recently approved a $100,000 cut from the pool budget by eliminating some jobs, though the District won’t yet say which jobs are on the chopping block. They’re also looking at increasing fees in order to raise wages and attract more lifeguards.
Other suggestions to close the funding gap include: lowering pool temperatures by a few degrees, switching from chlorine to salt, and fundraising.
No formal fee change has yet been introduced.