City council members feel they may be in too deep with the Wellington Family Aquatic Center after reviewing the facility’s annual profit and loss report.
At the Wellington City Council meeting Tuesday night, council member Richard Granger made a motion for the council to look into hiring a private CPA firm to look into the expenses and losses at the Wellington Family Aquatic Center (WFAC).
“That’s over a quarter of a million dollars. We could do a lot of good in this community with $270,000 somewhere else and still have a good, functioning, efficient aquatic center and I think somebody outside that can look at the operation that can give us and idea of how to better ourselves on this,” Granger said of the money spent on the WFAC over the last six years.
The Wellington Recreation Center (WRC) has a contract with the city to manage the aquatic center and every year, the net loss and or net profit is split 50/50 up to $10,000 in losses for the WRC. Everything else is the responsibility of the city.
This year, WFAC took a hit of $46,230 in loss — with the city having to pay for $36, 230 of that loss.
Collins says the loss was budgeted and expected this year and was no surprise to staff.
“It was not a surprise, in fact it was under what we expected. Can we do better? Sure. Can we look at some alternatives? Absolutely,” Collins said.
Constructed in 1999, the aquatic center attracted hundreds of people in its early life, but as other communities including Derby, Newton, McPherson and Arkansas City built their own pools and aquatic centers the drawn of outside pool participants grew smaller and smaller. Now the center sees an average of 234 people each day with a total of 19,429 people visiting in 2009.
Collins says no municipal pools are designed to make money, but are rather a “quality of life” factor for the community.
“Its one of those things that adds to our quality of life ... Frankly, I know and all my colleagues know around the state of Kansas that this isn’t going to make money. We try to understand that and minimize the loss,” Collins said.
“It’s just the operation of it. You just can’t price yourself so high because then they will run away and go to another option. You can’t price it at what it costs to maintain it because that would be astronomical. It’s just understood,” said Collins. “You hope you have a lot enter the doors and that its a great summer, but you still are going to be in the number’s game.”
Katherine Terry, city clerk for the City of Belle Plaine echoed his comments. Belle Plaine’s community pool made more than $15,862 in revenue this summer, but expenses came in at more than $36,000. In 2008, Belle Plaine saw slightly less in revenue and expenses with $15,215 in revenue and $33,609 in expenses.
“Nope, we lose money,” Terry said of the city pool. “This year we are just over $20,000 in the hole.”
She says the majority of their loss came from wages, as lifeguards with years of experience get raises and continue to come back each summer.
Collins says last year he conducted a survey with communities of similar size and they were all “in the red” with their pool budgets and operations.
“Mr. Weber and his staff are very coconscious of the expenditures and they contact me and visit with us on a weekly basis,” Collins said.
WRC Director William Weber says he and his staff are doing everything they can to be frugal and to minimize the losses for the city.
“We’re not out there to gouge the city. We want to make it fun for everybody and its just expensive to maintain,” Weber said.
The pool was opened for eight extra days this year, which may account for the more than $4,000 difference from last year, Weber said. Problems with maintaining chemical balance may have also been a major issue this summer. An extra $3,500 was spent to keep chlorine levels where they needed to be, the report said.
Weber says WRC wants the pool to be a success year in and year out and the WRC even installed three “funbrellas” at a cost of $3,702 from their funds — the city doesn’t have to pay a dime.
“That’s just one thing we do to help out,” Weber said.
Weber says he keeps extensive records of what was spent where and he welcomes a chance for change or the opportunity to minimize the loss for the city. The WFAC has been audited independently in the past, he said.
Wellington, Kan. —
