Parks fees to increase for nonresidents

BENTONVILLE -- Non-city residents wanting to participate in Parks and Recreation programs will need to pay more next year than residents.

The change is to recover the $155,000 annually spent on maintenance and operations to accommodate nonresidents who use the resident-taxpayer funded services, according to city officials.

Fees for nonresidents will be an additional $25 for any program whose registration fee is $75 or less and an additional $40 for any program whose registration fee is $75.01 or more.

"It's a recognizable difference, but we're not trying to make it punitive," said David Wright, parks and recreation director, told the City Council last week.

Wright and council members have been discussing the possibility of increasing fees for those who live outside city limits for more than two years. Wright presented suggested numbers to them for the first time at Tuesday's meeting.

Wright and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board looked seriously at the possibility after the completion of the department's master plan, Play Bentonville. The plan included how many participants lived outside Bentonville.

For instance, the youth soccer program has more than 4,200 players and 2,500, or about 60 percent, are Bentonville residents, meaning 40 percent live outside the city, according to Wright.

He used the soccer program also to illustrate how officials calculated the $155,000.

There are 11 full-size fields at Memorial Park and another three at Citizens Park, but they can be configured to fit many more youth games. Twenty games could be going on at once at Memorial Park and 18 at Citizens, according to Wright.

Smaller fields for the younger soccer players are created within the larger fields, he said. Not all of the full-sized fields would be needed if the program served only Bentonville residents.

However, parks employees line all the fields regularly, check the fields for potential dangers like divots and make sure all the goal nets are staked into the ground.

"There's a daily maintenance that takes place on every one of those fields because we're serving more than just our residents in that program," Wright said, explaining maintenance that would be done regardless, such as mowing, wasn't included in the $155,000.

And that's just one program, Wright said, explaining similar calculations were done for other programs.

The Parks Board also wanted to examine the admission and membership fees for the Community Center, Wright said, whose membership base is also about 40 percent nonresidents.

Daily and monthly passes will increase by $2 to $8 for a day pass, $25 for an adult monthly pass and $17 for youth and senior monthly passes. Annual passes will increase by $24 to $274 for an adult, $184 for youth and seniors and $489 for a family.

The Community Center has about 5,300 memberships, half of which are family memberships that can include up to four people. The center is reaching the point where people are turned away from some programs and classes because of space, Wright told council members.

Bentonville residents, those who pay taxes to the city, primarily paid for the building, so the extra cost to use the facility doesn't bother Centerton resident Wayne Low. He and his wife had memberships to the center so they could walk against the current in the lazy river for a low-impact exercise. The current eventually proved too strong for some of their joint issues and they let their memberships expire.

The increase to nonresidents would be an inconvenience but wouldn't be unreasonable to Low if he renewed his membership because Centerton didn't help pay for the building, he said.

"It's nice that they even allow people from other cities to use it," he said.

Bentonville is the first of Northwest Arkansas' four largest cities to implement different fees for nonresidents participating in parks and recreation programs. It's not the first, however, to charge different rates for facility use.

Rogers' admission fee to its aquatic center is $12 for residents and $15 for nonresidents.

It was built with bond money residents voted for, said Jim White, director of Rogers Parks and Recreation. The City Council at the time said residents should receive a bit of a break because their tax dollars paid for it, he said.

Rogers collects field and park rental fees as well as aquatic center admission. The Rogers Community School Recreation Association, a nonprofit organization, handles the fees for recreation leagues, White explained. The leagues primarily consist of Rogers residents though anyone is allowed to participate at no extra cost.

Springdale and Fayetteville allow nonresidents to participate in their offerings but don't charge them any more than those who live in each city. Officials from neither city had the number of nonresident verses resident participants, but said the vast majority of participants lived in the respective city.

Many of the surrounding communities have youth sports programs whereas Bentonville's surrounding cities are more limited in their offerings, said John Crow, Fayetteville recreation superintendent.

"There's no real need for them to come in," he said.

Additional infrastructure to increase capacity is going to be a large expense over the next few years as Bentonville's population continues to grow, said Bill Burckart, Ward 3 council member.

"Do you think you'll take this one step further?" he asked Wright about what future capital costs might be expected.

The number of participants in the recreation programs would warrant more facilities; however, the number of residents in the programs wouldn't warrant them at all, Wright said, explaining the next step would be for his department to change from an operational standpoint.

The focus will be to improve facilities instead of adding new ones, he said. That may mean that programs are capped in terms of participants. Registration would be open first to residents and then to nonresidents. It would close as soon as the number of spaces were filled, Wright said.

"I don't think we're there yet," he said. "I think it'll be several years before we get there, Bill, but that will be the next step."

The council will be expected to approve the new charges toward the end of this year. Wright said he wanted to make sure the council was "ok with the direction we're going" prior to educating program participants of the changes.

He also will use the new fees when developing the 2019 budget.

NW News on 06/17/2018