Rec commission contemplates request for mill levy increase
Recreation commission needs 2 more mills
By Russ Morgan (Contact)
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Emporia Recreation Commission discussed the possibility of requesting an additional 2 mills from USD 253 at a special board meeting Monday afternoon.
By state law, the current maximum the commission can levy is 4 mills, which hasn’t changed since 1989. A two mill increase would bring in an additional $350,000 per year.
Tom McEvoy, director of the Emporia Recreation Center, said the additional funding is needed because the role of the recreation commission has changed.
“Recreation commissions were created to be programmers, not facilitators,” McEvoy said. “Over the years, our role has changed to not only providing programming, but we also became maintainers and developers of a variety of recreation facilities throughout the community.”
The additional money will go to help pay off bonds the commission currently holds and to help offset operational costs that should be used for programming, McEvoy said.
“Resources that should have been going into programming have been diverted to go into facilitation,” he said.
McEvoy said that under state statute KSA 1922-1928, the recreation commission needs to concentrate its 4 mill levy on recreation programming, including administration, staffing, supplies and equipment for specific programs.
The problem, he said, is that the commission has taken on more of a burden, in part because of the lack of an agreement between the city and the recreation commission on the use and maintenance of the recreation center, the ball diamond at Soden’s Grove, the Trusler Sports Complex and Jones Park.
Money also is needed to help fund capital improvement projects that are needed at various recreation facilities. Additional money from a mill levy increase could be used to create a fund to help pay for these projects. The current five-year Capital Improvement Plan, which is made up solely of improvements and maintenance of current facilities, amounts to $4.8 million.
“These are just improvements,” McEvoy said. “There’s no new facilitation in the CIP, this is just to improve what we currently have.”
Under the recreation commission’s current funding program, only 8 percent of that amount will be funded, or $373,000.
“Raising the mill levy would meet the needs of current and future programming,” McEvoy said, “and the improvement of recreation facilities. ... Planning for the future needs of the facilities is imperative. We’re at a crossroads right now. Either we do something about it to start making some of these improvements or we’re going to start losing programming down the line, or we may have to cut what we’re currently doing out there as it relates to facilitation issues.”
Currently, the recreation commission receives about $643,000 per year. The average for cities of a similar size is $938,000.
The commission would use $96,000 of the additional $355,000 per year to help pay off bonds; $125,000 would be used to offset expenses, and $185,000 would be used for improvements.
Members of the commission held a lengthy discussion about a plan to move forward with the request. The discussion centered around the inability of the commission to come to an agreement with the city about each entity’s responsibilities regarding the city’s parks and recreational facilities.
“How do you propose to develop a comprehensive agreement with the City of Emporia since we’ve been trying to negotiate with them for a year and a half?” Mike Helbert asked.
“Well, that’s the thing we’re trying to do,” McEvoy said.
“... I understand that, and I’m not trying to rattle sabers here,” Helbert said, “but gosh sakes, we’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been on here ... and we have not made an inch worth of progress.” He added that he hasn’t even seen a draft from the city outlining what it will and won’t agree to. “I want to see some progress before I’m going to vote on raising taxes on anything, I’ll tell you that right now.”
The commission directed McEvoy to get together with the city commission to work on a comprehensive plan before moving forward with a request for a mill levy increase. The plan will be reviewed at the recreation commission’s April 13 board meeting.
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.