Santa Barbara’s Parks & Recreation Department wants to raise pickleball and summer camp fees, but also eliminate one school site for after-school programs, according to the city’s proposed budget for 2024.
On the table is a proposal to increase the annual pickleball and tennis participation fees to $139 from $75.
“When you factor that out, if someone was to play every day, it would be 38 cents a day to go play either tennis or pickleball at one our facilities,” Parks & Recreation director Jill Zachary said.
She said part of the reason for the fee increase for pickleball, tennis and other recreational programs is the cost of custodial services.
“Custodial keeps cropping up in everything I say,” Zachary said. “That is one of the highest costs we have. We have to contract out for that.
“We don’t have a team of custodians that is running around maintaining restrooms on a regular basis.”
She also said there were sports court resurfacing costs.
The Parks & Recreation Department, with a budget of $7.9 million, is also proposing to raise summer camp fees by between $5 and $25, with an average increase of $11.
“To a large extent, it has to do with staffing costs,” Zachary told Noozhawk. “So many businesses have realized the cost of staffing has gone up.
“In order to attract the staff, we have to pay them a wage that makes them want to work for us.”
She said some camps are also longer this year.
In addition, the city has reduced the number of sites where it offers its Recreation After School Program to three locations from four, for a projected savings of $70,000.
The fee-based after-school program provides homework assistance, recreation activities, sports, crafts and special programs for first- through sixth-graders.
Adams, Roosevelt and Washington schools are the three campus hosts now that Monroe School has been dropped.
“Some sites have had low participation rates, which has affected our staffing, and then we have other sites that have waitlists that we haven’t been able to respond to because we don’t have the staff,” Zachary explained.
Monroe School was eliminated because of declining attendance for the past five years, city officials said.
Zachary said she didn’t want to make any cuts, but that the department must be sustainable.
“Our budget is 60% salaries and benefits, so what else is going to get cut instead,” she said.
“We don’t want to cut this program,” assistant director Jazmin Le Blanc said of the Recreation After School Program.
“But when we are faced with these challenges around staffing and funding, we had to make the best decision that we could.”
Le Blanc said the city could return to Monroe School in the future if the budget situation changes.
RAP programs would remain at Adams School in the Samarkand neighborhood and Washington School on the Upper Eastside, and LeBlanc noted that the two Mesa schools — Monroe and Washington — “are walkable” at less than a mile apart.
She said the city also might try to work with the Santa Barbara Unified School District to use school support staff to “get kids from the Monroe site to the Washington site.”
City staff at Monroe will be transferred to the other campuses.
The cost to swim is also proposed to rise at Los Baños del Mar pool at the waterfront.
For adult lap swimming, a 10-visit pass will rise to $68 from $54. For seniors, a 10-visit pass will now cost $50, from $44.
Proposed unlimited monthly rates are to be $85 for adults, from $76, and $68 for seniors, from $56.
“Depending on how much someone loves to swim, they can swim, pretty much everyday, as much as they wanted, for $85 a month,” Zachary said.
“It’s really up to the individual, just like a gym pass.”
The city is also proposing significant fee increases for tree removal requests.
“This is one we gave significant consideration to,” Zachary said. “Our fees are well below the fees of other city departments.”
The cost of a permit to remove a street tree would jump to $325 from $75 and a setback tree to $125 from $75.
“A city street tree is a city asset,” Zachary said. “It’s a public asset, it’s a community asset.”
The cost to appeal a tree removal would skyrocket, to $845 from $105.
LeBlanc said she understands “it’s a big jump.”
Parks & Recreation Commission member Jeffrey Chang expressed strong support for the fee increases.
“I am in total support of these increases,” he said. “I think we should jack these increases up to $1,000. I am not running for office. You’re welcome.”
Chang said the median annual income for a family in Santa Barbara is $100,000.
“Given the trees that I have seen come across our desk, the people who may be appealing would likely to be able to afford it,” he said. “So I think it makes a lot of sense to try and at least meet the cost of what you are spending on this.”
The Parks & Recreation Department is also looking to cut about $289,000 in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2024.
Those cuts include eliminating the Saturday drop-in skateboard clinic at Skater’s Point Skatepark and the adult basketball league because of low enrollment.
The City Council will ultimately decide the fate of the department’s proposal when it approves the budget in June.
The Parks & Recreation Commission agreed to support the changes, but urged department staff to consider other ways to make cuts rather than slashing the after-school programs and summer camps.
