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Letter to the editor

Recreation cuts need scalpel rather than ax

When it comes to cutting their budgets to meet a state mandate, city governments have turned almost reflexively to recreation programs. City officials have been quick to say that public safety is their primary obligation, and that means no or few cuts to police and fire, but recreation programs seem to be fair game.

However, there is a public safety component to many recreation department offerings, particularly those designed for children and teenagers.

Close recreation centers, and city summer camps for children have no base from which to operate. Parents who line up, even camp out, to get their children into those camps will have to find alternatives. If they can't, their children may be left at home, unsupervised.

Lay off recreation staff, and there is no one to operate camps, conduct recreation programs after school and on weekends throughout the year, or keep a watchful eye on the playgrounds or parks that often surround recreation centers.

Shutter a recreation center and you eliminate a neighborhood activity center, which means that criminals have a better opportunity to do their work unobserved while homeowners are at their jobs.

Clearwater City Council members were thinking about the ties between recreation and public safety during a recent discussion of whether to close recreation centers or substantially increase the fees people must pay to participate in recreation programs. Under the Florida Legislature's new tax reform bill, Clearwater must roll back its 2008 tax rate to 2007 levels and cut at least 7 percent more from its budget.

Council member Carlen Petersen mentioned that maintaining recreation programs now could help reduce law enforcement costs in the future, a point echoed by Parks and Recreation director Kevin Dunbar. "(Police Chief) Sid Klein would rather have us do it, " he said.

At the time, the City Council was considering closing two city recreation centers - the Morningside center and the Clearwater Beach center - and perhaps trimming staff or hours at other centers, too. The council also was mulling raising participant fees, although council members were worried that would drive away those who most need the low-cost programming offered by city recreation departments.

Mayor Frank Hibbard also expressed some misgivings about cutting too deeply into recreation offerings. "It's not just about quality of life, " he said. "It's also about the alternatives - having kids doing other things."

On the other hand, it is important that government operate efficiently. The Legislature's mandate provides a good opportunity for all local governments to examine the costs and benefits of recreation programs.

Does it make sense, for example, to keep a recreation center open and staffed all summer if the only major activity there is a summer camp for 15 or 20 children? A more efficient solution might be to provide extra spaces at another center's camp and perhaps offer van transportation.

Is it efficient to cool and staff a recreation center so that an exercise class for three or four participants can be conducted? Perhaps a minimum enrollment number should be mandated or the exercise class offered at fewer locations, or a different program that is more appealing needs to be offered.

In a culture where most people of working age are at jobs during the day, should recreation centers be open all day, or should they open around the time school lets out and stay open through the evening?

Elected officials looking to cut their recreation budgets ought to consider efficiencies first. They need to have participant numbers for recreation programs and hours of operation and costs of operation for recreation centers. They need to sort through those numbers diligently for ways to save, because recreation programs aren't always as disposable as the budget cutters have implied.

[Last modified July 3, 2007, 09:36:45]