Here's an interesting factoid: Apparently in Lincoln there are currently about 3 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. That comes out to roughly 131 square feet per person, or an area 11 feet by 12 feet. Quick, go claim the best tract!
In the future, that figure could drop to about 1 acre of parkland per 1,000 residents. Again, that's roughly 43.5 square feet per person, or an area 6 feet 7 inches square.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand Lincoln has a pretty decent parks system going right now. There's plenty of space to be shared, but there's "too much" in the sense that we can't manage it all. So if we can't -- or rather, aren't willing to -- take care of what we have, then less seems like a good idea. But boy, saying "We don't need greenspace or recreational opportunities" makes you cringe, doesn't it?
On a related note, Lincoln's future may hold more spraygrounds and fewer pools. That'll make a lot of people flinch. Spraygrounds $7,000 to $10,000 per year to operate; pools comes in at $30,000 to $40,000. The argument is that spraygrounds are more financial viable. I don't follow the math. In order for a $7,000 sprayground to be a better deal than a $40,000 pool, the pool would have to bring in $33,000 or less per year. Let's say that pool is open 80 days per year. (I'm figuring June, July, and August, minus rainy days. It's a rough guesstimate.) That means the pool needs to bring in less than $412.50 per day for the sprayground to lose less money than the pool. But how hard can it be to average $412.50 per day at a pool? That's about 125 regular price youth admissions. Are there really that many low-income admissions or that few pool users that a pool can't bring in 400 bucks worth of admissions and concessions? (That's not a rhetorical question. I haven't been to a public pool in decades so I don't really have a good feel for the numbers.)
It's hard for me to understand how public pools aren't making it. As my extremely rough calculations show, it doesn't take all that much for a pool to break even. If they can't even do that ... well, either we keep subsidizing or we try something else. Do public pools have advertising banners on the fences? I don't recall seeing any, but that's not saying much. Surely there's a few grand to be had there.
All of this is a long way of saying: fewer (or smaller) parks and fewer pools ... is that where we want Lincoln to head? Perhaps we do. Perhaps we have a glut of parkland, and perhaps public pools are an anachronism. I might (reluctantly) grant you the latter proposition, but I whole-heartedly reject the former. I'm eager to see what Lincolnites think about all this.
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I think your estimate of $30-$40,000 to operate a pool is way off.
From the city’s season employment page (Parks Dept):
They plan to hire 325 workers (lifeguards, head life guards, concession workers and coaches)
average pay (low end ) $9/hr * 37 hrs/week * 11 week season
Total ~ $1.2 million for 9 pools
Equal $132,000 per pool
Throw in chemicals, utilities and liability insurance (unless the city self-insures) and the total has to be at least $150,000 per season.
Spray parks are unattended, I assume?
I think you are making the assumption here that all 325 workers work the full 37 hours per week the pools are open. That would mean for the 9 pools there would be a staff of 36 on duty all the time.
Average hours per worker must be more like 15 to 20 per week.
True, but the pools are open (I’m pretty sure) from 9 am to 9 pm. The lifeguard posting mentions a 37 hour week. And as a former lifeguard, I can see - at a large pool - 15 guards with 7-10 on-duty at any one time. The rest are snapping towels at each other and yelling “WALK!”
Star City Shores 12:30-8:00
Arnold, Ballard, Belmont, Eden, Irving, Woods 1:00 - 6:00
Highlands, UNI 1:00 - 8:00
Star City might have 10-15 people at any one time but the smaller pools certainly don’t have that many working.
Shoulda checked the pool schedule first. The seasonal job listing say “vary from 9am to 9pm.
so…
Here’s the Mayor’s 2010-2011 budget for Parks & Recreation Department, Aquatics Section:
total $1,053,450
I don’t know if that covers just pools or pools and other stuff.. but it averages a bit over $117,000 per pool.
Actual expenditures in 2008-2009 were $1,012,642 - $112,500 per pool.
Either way, there’s now way you could run a municiple pool for $30-40 thousand.
http://lincoln.ne.gov/city/finance/budget/pdf/parks11.pdf
not a MUNICIPAL pool neither.
The $30-$40k has to be the subsidy to each pool rather than the total operating cost.
I couldn’t find detailed expenditures for Lincoln city pools, but Yankton, SD (pop. 15,000) provides a nice breakout of their costs as an example (http://www.cityofyankton.org/yankton/topics/memorialpool.php). No idea what their facility is actually like, but it cost them $80,000 to run their pool in 2005.
Yankton’s pool admission revenue ran around $23,000, a $55k deficit. Assuming total operating costs are similar in Lincoln, it’s pretty easy to see how the net cost to the city would run in the $30-$40k per pool range given the higher population and lack of a major water body nearby.
OK. I see the error of my ways. I thought the $30-40,000 was referring to the total costs to operate a pool. I wish they had said the net expense to the city, after revenues.
The $30k-$40k estimate isn’t mine. It’s right there in the article in the Journal Star:
“[City Parks and Recreation Director Lynn Johnson] said [spraygrounds] cost $7,000 to $10,000 a year to run, compared to $30,000 to $40,000 for a traditional pool.”
Now I’m with you, $30k-$40k sounds low. But the head of Parks & Rec says that’s how much they cost. Who am I to disagree?
As a lifeguard at Woods I can tell you that public pools do not make a profit. At the beginning of each year, there is a city-wide aquatics meeting. In previous years they have gone over the most profitable pools in Lincoln. The only pools that I have ever seen bring in a profit are Star City Shores and Woods (due to large concessions). All other city pools end up with a deficit at the end of each year.
btw, the average work week for a public pool guard is around 30 hours or so. but you also have to factor in the 5 people at each pool who work as permanent subs (who get around 1 or 2 days of work a week). At woods, we’d have 13 guards on duty and 2-3 head guards. At some smaller neighborhood pools i subbed at there were only 4 guards on staff. just some numbers to crunch…
Also, you would be surprised at the # of kids who get into the pool with reduced rates (considering that more than half of LPS students are on free/reduced lunch). Or maybe that was just a Woods thing, idk.
and just to interject my own thoughts…
I think that Lincoln parks & rec pays lifeguards fairly justly. I’ve looked around at some country clubs and private pools and oftentimes lifeguards only get paid minimum wage. now, I’m not saying that lifeguarding is a job that one needs to be HIGHLY qualified for, but it’s not your basic grocery bagging type of job.blahblahblahblah
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