Joining or renewing a membership at the Patrick Henry Hays Senior Citizens Center in North Little Rock will cost more next year, the city's Senior Citizens Commission decided Monday.

Commissioners voted 7-0 to raise a $25 fee to $35 annually and a $130 fee to $150 annually at the center, 401 W. Pershing Blvd. Commissioners Mary Ruth Morgan and Eddie Powell were absent.

The increase will be effective Jan. 1, or whenever a member's annual membership is up for renewal in 2015.

The commission held a comment session Aug. 11 for members to discuss the proposed increase, and staff members recorded comments since then. No members attended the commission meeting Monday.

"To me, most are saying they understand and that it's the right thing to do," Charley Baxter, the center's director, told commissioners. "I don't know how negatively it might affect us. The last time nothing negative happened."

Members now pay $25 to use the center during its regular hours of 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays and 2-5 p.m. Sundays. Members who now pay the $130 fee can use the center during extended hours of 7 a.m.-8 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays and noon-5 p.m. Sundays.

About 87 percent of members pay the lower fee, Baxter said. Membership fees account for about 18 percent of the center's $987,000 budget. The center has between 4,200-4,500 active members monthly, Baxter told commissioners. An active member, he explained, is a member counted as using the center within a 30-day period.

The last membership fee increase was in 2007. That was the year the center completed an expansion to almost 60,000 square feet. It opened in 2003.

Information presented to commissioners during the Aug. 11 meeting indicated that annual membership costs for senior centers range between $120-$300 annually in nearby cities.

Dick Blankenbeker, the commission's chairman, told the panel that while sitting in the center's lobby area one day, a small group of visitors walked by marveling at the center's amenities.

"Every one of them that came by said 'Wow. What a building,"' he said. "That's what people just need to come out and see. We just want it to be able to continue to be here."

Metro on 08/26/2014