City examines increase to rec program fees
Whitefish Parks and Recreation’s after school and summer programs could see rate increases beginning this summer to cover increased costs associated with running the programs.
Maria Butts, Parks and Recreation Director, presented proposed changes during a Whitefish City Council work session Feb. 4 on future fee increases for the programs, which include the Stumptown Summer Day Camp, before and after school programs and youth programs.
Last year the programs in total served about 600 children.
The fee increase would lower the cost of summer camp by offering a membership model for $2,250 in 2020. The membership model would allow parents to save by paying in a lump sum rather than on a per-day basis, as has been done in the past.
After school programs would see per-day price hikes of $14 to $15, and before school program costs increase from $7 to $10.
Most increases are within $10 from the 2019 prices, with the exception of youth programs like tennis, basketball, flag football and rock climbing, which have price hikes of $20 to $50.
The last rate increase came in 2017, Butts explained, and since then the cost of doing business has increased and revenues from the programs have not offset expenditures.
“We do not ever make money off [these programs]. If you were take all of our programs together and look at revenue versus expenditure and include our administrative costs, you would never make money off of that,” Butts told Council. “The goal is always really a break even with a portion of those administrative costs being covered by our administrative fund within our budget, essentially.”
Butts said her department considered both a standard rate increase across all programs and an alternative that asks parents to pay in membership fees. In the end, she said a little bit of each works out the best.
“We came up with a hybrid fee schedule, which gives us the best cost recovery of all our programs, gives the parent the most variety of options,” she said.
The hybrid model incorporates the membership costs into summer day camp, but uses the standard rate increases for the rest of the programs.
However, Councilor Richard Hildner said he could see some issues with the summer camp membership prices of $2,430 in 2019 and $2,250 in 2020, even if they do work out as better savings in the end.
“I looked at that $2,430 and the sticker shock — where in the world would I come up with $2,430?” he said. “To write a check, a lot of people can’t do that, they don’t have that kind of savings.”
While the lump sum cost of the summer camp looks expensive altogether, Butts said the membership model is actually a $2,970 value and lowers the per-day cost of the camp from $50 in 2019 and $55 in 2020 to $42.
The Parks Department is also consider non-resident fees that will help cover costs for attendees that are not primary residents within the Whitefish School District or do not attend Whitefish Schools.
“Summer camp is really the sticking point,” she said. “The reason is because it’s every day of the summer, so $55 per day. That’s a lot of money when you are talking about putting your child in five days a week. Some people use our programs for recreational purposes but a lot of people use it more as a childcare service. They need some place for their child to go, they want them to go to a fun place and be around other kids, so they utilize the service in that manner. When you start talking about 53 operational days per summer, that adds up.”
City Council is set to vote on the rate increases during its Feb. 19 meeting.