Okay. All right. Sorry for the little delay there. Um, I will now call to order. We good. Okay. Um,
our August meeting of the Bloomington board of park commissioners and, um, Molly, can you start us off
with the roll call please or Tim or somebody over there on that side of the room? You're good. Can you
hear me? Yes. Okay. Uh, Israel Herrera, Kathleen Mills here.
Okay, all right, so we do have everyone with Jim there remotely And as usual in our section a we have
all the things we see recording in progress the payroll and claims Credit card refunds minutes from
the last meeting and That sort of thing and then some some smaller contracts. So do we have a motion to?
Move to approve the consent calendar Move to approve the consent calendar Okay, and do we can we do
do we have to do roll call because Jim's up there, okay All right, so roll call vote of those in favor
Is really over half Kathleen knows I Ellen Rocky I Jim Whitlatch I Okay
Motion is carried past the consent calendar and then we move to section B our public hearings and appearances
and There is a Bravo award All right, good evening everyone Emily boo community relations coordinator
and I would like to recognize Alex Weissman with the August Bravo award Alex has been an adopted green
space volunteer since 2022
Focusing on the north end of the beeline trail from Fairview Street to Lampost 170 his punctuality and
thoroughness in his monthly reports have been a great asset to my records and to our urban green space
team in their efforts to locate and remove invasive species and hazards along his parcel because of
Alex's dedication to removing invasive species along this section of trail over 100 other volunteers
have experienced the importance of protecting our urban green space during weed wrangles and
other neighborhood outreach events and
We are very fortunate to have Alex as an adopt a green space volunteer for his longevity and consistency
for his reporting concerns and positive suggestions and for his care about the quality of our shared
environment Yeah, just like to say thank you very much for this award I really appreciate the recognition Yeah
Yeah, I started doing this, I guess, eight years ago when I first bought my house. And my yard was overrun
with Japanese knotweed and other bush honeysuckle, so I cleared all that out. And then I realized that
it was just coming in from the adjacent parcels and the beeline and everything, so I thought I should
do something about that too. So that's how I, you know,
got connected with Jillian and Joanna and the rest of the gang. So yeah, I realized invasive plants
don't really care about property boundaries or anything like that. So if I wanted to get my own yard
under control, I would need to help out with my neighbors and my surroundings. So that said, I'd actually
also like to take this opportunity to
To thank the city for everything it does to support the work of me and other volunteers And also, I
hope the city will consider expanding support for homeowners to tackle some of the bigger invasive plant
issues on their property especially large invasive trees that are more than I could do with a with a
handsaw and loppers I know we have a tree tree assistance program. So
It would be cool if we could you know expand that if the funds are available Yeah, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. Thank you Alex really appreciate your Never-ending battle against invasive species
Okay, and then we have a staff introduction this evening so we will meet Molly who's New in the office. Yes
Hello, yes. I'm Molly. I'm the new office manager. I come from Illinois. My background's actually in
athletic training. My master's is in public health. And I originally started working managerial-wise
in physical therapy. So I managed a physical therapy office for four years. And then I came over to
Indiana with my husband. He's getting his PhD in education from IU. So then I worked at IU Health for
the past three years in primary care.
as their office manager. So I'm just excited to start with the Parks and Rec Department for fun. My
husband and I like to foster dogs. And then I also still do some athletic training on the side with
the local middle schools in the area. So that's me. All right. Welcome. Thank you. Yes. OK.
All right, and then in number three here in our public hearings and appearances We have an honorary
naming request for less coin, which Mick will tell us about It's odd to be back on this side of the
microphone Not that I haven't been on this side, but it's a pleasure to be here for this reason for
sure I'm Mick Renison former Parks and Recreation director Deputy mayor and now current golfer at Cascades
golf course and park user in general Molly are you gonna run the slideshow for us?
Sure First I'd like to thank Kathleen you for receiving the letter and taking it to this level to getting
it to the park board meeting and then also I want to thank Tim and Julie Ramey for their assistance
in helping us do some research when you have someone with the career as long as less had less coin that
was a parks board member for 44 years and
Tracing back some of the history takes a little bit of time and effort and grabbing some pictures that
were from the early years of his His work as a parks commissioner all the way to his last years were
something we wanted to capture in this presentation. So our request Because of those 44 years of service
less also served on the parks foundation almost that entire time is to rename or name the Griffey loop
trail in recognition of less is 44 years of service to the park board and
My colleague in crime is Mary Catherine Carmichael a former commissioner herself for a decade as well
as a former deputy mayor for the city There are a lot of accomplishments we could list but we try to
capture just some of the more salient and important ones Less was not responsible for 2,242 acres of
land being acquired here, but his footprints on the park system
to go back in time and say in 1978, what was exactly the number of park acres? Someone might be able
to research that. Maybe AI can find that for us, but it's been added to considerably since the 1970s
to today's acreage total of 2242 acres. That, by the way, is a significant amount for a park system
of our size, and I'm finding that out in my part-time consulting role I do when I travel around the
country and look at other people's systems.
I would put this one up against any of that I've seen Les was offered also particularly interested in
program expansion at the Banneker Community Center and the Allison jukebox Center Basically areas that
serve children and sometimes underprivileged populations as well I've already mentioned his decades
of service to the parks foundation board and we would not have our burgeoning Continuing trail system
without less is vision we started with the
trails and then added obviously the beeline the rail trail Cascades Park Trail and now I see the power
line trail being added to the system as well and the first significant trail addition short of the original
rail trail system was the Clear Creek Trail and the first phase of that was in 2000 so 26 years ago are now
pretty large trail system was started and that was in large part due to less is vision and Our interest
in and I'll get to a slide that talks about this community. Well, there it is the community engagement
efforts My first year as director was 1996 I was coming from the sports world if you'd have asked me
what I thought our community wanted I would have said a new ice arena or more basketball courts or Ten
more softball diamonds or something along that line because that's what I knew we did a survey again
at less is
urging in 1995 in preparation for one of the many master plans five-year master plans that the part
the department does and that survey said number one build trails It said that every five years throughout
my tenure for 20 years. It said build trails So thanks to less is kind of urgent or urgency or making
sure we were listening to the public our master plan has produced exactly what our public has wanted
six of those and
Less's tenure. I think this is kind of an interesting statistic. I didn't survive five mayors But but
less did and that's saying something because you all know you were appointed by the mayor of two four-year
terms so he was he went through a lot of mayors going back in time to Actually, his first one was Frank
McCluskey. That's his first appointment started in the McCluskey area here's some of the highlights
I think of
Facility assets. There's also program things but just some of the things the trail system we talked
about both municipal pools at Mills and Bryan Park were renovated The Twin Lakes ball fields were built
and the indoor sports complex now known as the Twin Lakes rec center was acquired The new golf course
at Cascades. I say new that was built in 2000 that was constructed at unless it does not play golf,
but he was good about listening to the community that wanted to see another asset constructed there and
the upper cascade skate park. None of us in the department knew much about skating. Again, we listened
to the public, and the users told us what they wanted, and that resulted in the upper cascade skate
park. But it was particularly interesting to watch Les attend those meetings with the audience that
skates in our community. And then Alcott Park, all of our playgrounds have been upgraded during Les's
tenure. Switchart Park, which the crown jewel, the last one I think he and I both saw it,
come to completion during our tenures with the city. And finally, the Griffey Lake improvements, and
those meant a lot to Les. Particularly Griffey Lake was a close, well-loved asset by Les Coyne. And
then these are just some of the results of, again, I think a leader who made sure that the department
and all of the staff knew that we should be doing things not just good, but with that extra 10% of effort.
And the next slide kind of talks about that. That's less in a nutshell. He was always like, just do
that extra 10%, Mick. That'll get us over the top. That's kind of the old good-to-great concept,
and for less, it was the extra 10%. And these are just some of the characteristics that we all benefited
from for less. Some other personal qualities. We had lunch every Thursday, and to talk about things,
I personally witnessed all those
Things from less I'm sure our staff did too. I'm sure they still do today and then here's just enclosing
some pictures of Some events that less attended. This is one of the Crestmont neighborhood events. I
Don't know what year All Cot Park you can see Joanne and Lloyd all caught at the dedication. This was
right around 2000 a very much younger version of me And less I supposed to would say that
This is less at the golf course grand opening of the new nine at Cascades where I do spend a lot of
time but he was good about As a non golfer making sure that that we were paying attention to the needs
of all of the residents recreation interest in our community This was mayor Allison with their hand
in the air That was former director norm Merrifield and this is celebrating the now Waldron Hill Buskirk
Park renovations that happened, you know I think this was like early 90s or so and
and the very beginning of our burgeoning trail system, the Clear Creek Trail, the very first phase.
This one probably not many people would remember, but this is the Seminary Wall Project, Seminary Park
Wall Project, the historic wall. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as nice today as it did then, but there's
Lloyd Alcott again, and Ted Deppie from our Parks Foundation, and Miles Brand, president of the Indiana
University. So it's a very historic site in Bloomington.
the original home of Indiana University as a seminary. Les and some fellow park commissioners, when
we were initially beginning to get people excited about the first phase of construction on the Beeline
Trail, that's right behind City Hall. Doesn't look that way today. And finally, our friend and colleague,
Les. So we really appreciate the opportunity for you to consider naming the Griffey Lake Loop Trail
with Les's name on it. I called him today and said, I don't want you to read about this or
Your brother who works at the city now tells you, hey, I didn't know they were going to name this.
I'm like, we don't know that they will name this. But in case someone asks you, Les, out in Oregon,
we are requesting that you all consider this naming request. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Well, thank you, Mick. And yeah, I would just add, when I first joined the Parks Board, I served with
Les in everything that you say.
Yeah, the memory that he had for all of the projects and yeah, as you mentioned, I mean, always pushing
things to be better. I definitely witnessed that, so yeah. Thank you for presenting that and I think,
any questions for Mick? I would second the, and fully support 100% this naming of less for this loop and
it seems to me the least we can do. When I was first asked to serve on the Parks Board, the only thing
that I've ever known about the Parks Board was Les Coyne because Les Coyne was the Parks Board as far
as I was concerned with apologies to all those others who have served on it well and done wonderful
things over the years, but Les was, is, and in my mind continues to be the Park Board. So I fully support
this naming of this loop trail in behalf of Les as a minimum recognition of his services over the years.
All right. Thank you. Thanks, Mick. You're welcome. Okay. Let's see. And then we move into our section
C, other business. And first up, we are going to have the election of secretary. So
That's Molly Yes, okay And just a note on the last item two that I've talked about with some
folks individually But today we accepted, you know, the third party letter as the recommendation We
can have conversations follow-up as needed and then I believe what we would do if we want to move forward
And the board is comfortable with that would be to introduce that via resolution. Yeah at a future meeting
So just wanted to give that procedural note there. And then in terms of moving into section C, election
of secretary, obviously, Kim Clapp has been retired since April. And Molly is here now and ready to
take on the reins of secretary. So I think we just need a motion, a second, and a vote on electing her
as secretary. All right. I'll make a motion to elect Molly Cochran as secretary of the Parks Board.
And a roll call vote of those in favor I'll do it Israel Herrera Kathleen knows I Ellen Rodkey. I Jim
Whitlatch He said I okay Okay. All right. Great. Well that passes unanimously and again, welcome Molly.
Yeah. Oh Jim can you say your vote again? It didn't quite come through I in favor Thank you
You know how lawyers are. Well, I know, and I noticed I was on mute. I apologize. OK. All right. And
then in item two, we have resolution 26-03 for adoption of some bylaws for the Board of Park Commissioners.
And it's my understanding there's just a push citywide to make sure that bylaws are in place. Yeah.
And we have some pretty obvious ones listed here.
Let's see, Molly, is there anything else to tell us about the bylaws here? No, the bylaws are what we
have been following in the guidance of the state of Indiana. We just need something officially written
down to be able to put on onboard so it's public accessible that we are following these bylaws and they
are the same as the code of Indiana already states. Okay. All right.
Motion to approve resolution to adopt resolution 26-03 All right in a roll call vote of those in favor
Israel Herrera Kathleen Mills aye Ellen Rodkey. I Jim Whitlach. I Okay motion is carried bylaws are passed
And then in item three, we have the agreement with Championship Greens for port-in-place repairs.
And Amy, you're not Amy. I am not Amy. Thanks for noticing. Mark Moratz, operations superintendent filling
in for Amy. And I'm here to recommend approval of a contract with Championship Greens to complete some
repairs for port-in-place servicing at five different locations.
for the amount of $69,957 we've we went around all of our playgrounds this a Couple months ago looking
at all the conditions of these surfaces and deemed that these were five that needed to be repaired for
a lot of safety reasons RCA is one of them that is currently a tiled surfacing there that kind of like
Brian taught lot last year where there was forming gaps and a lot of
It's a curling of it causing trip hazards That will be a complete removal and redo of that area And
the lower cascade and the swing set area. There'll be complete removal and repairing that replacing
that actually Southeast Park and Highland Village, and I feel like a mr. Crestmont is the other one
Okay And is that I can't remember from the previous ones is that is that?
There have to be closed for a number of days to let it kind of settle and some of these will have to
be closed for a couple of days Yeah, RCA will definitely have to be closed down for a couple of days
Crestmont Should be able to just be a repair. It's just the top cap that they're doing really no sub
base removal So all they got to do is add that new color code on top, okay? All right any other questions
about this one?
the contract the championship greens for foreign police repairs Okay, and a roll call vote of those
in favor I Jim Whitlatch, I Okay motion carry. Thank you All right, and then in number four we have
the Duke easement agreement Which you're gonna
Director will be covering this one for Rebecca this evening This is a very minor easement acquisition
for Duke Energy They brought this to us. They requested they said along Leonard Springs Road just west
of the Nature Preserve They need to drop a new guy wire for their line it's tens of square feet They
just needed to extend their easement a little farther to be able to do that They will pay the Parks
Department a sum of one dollar
Okay, and we're okay with that we are yes, it's it's the edge of the preserve it's right along the road
There's very minimal impact. Okay All right any questions for Tim about this one Yes, yes, they brought
it to us with a request for that for their line integrity they needed to add this Yeah Probably cost
more money to record this than it does
Thankfully, we'll send it I'll make a motion to approve the Modified easement with Duke energy for guy
wire placement Okay, and a roll call vote of those in favor is real Kara Kathleen Mills. I Ellen Rodkey.
I Jim Woodlatch. I Okay motion is carried and then in number five in this section I
Tim will tell us about the 2027 general fund budget as it is budget season Yes, thank you Tim Street
parks director I am asking tonight that the board of commissioners provides a positive recommendation
on the passage of this budget Just a general reminder that the board of committee park commissioners
is responsible is the fiscal legislative body for the non-reverting account City council is the fiscal
legislative body for the general fund account So we will approach that
Accordingly with the two staff reports here But it is always helpful and I like to bring you know to
you what I'm gonna be presenting to council So the park board can can see and be behind what we are
presenting to council. I have 20 minutes to present to council We will be presenting on Mondays budget
hearing around 530 or just thereafter I'm gonna try to not give you the full 20 minute presentation
right now because you as board of park commissioners Do you already know a lot of the stuff that we
do? You're a little more
Insiders than the City Council is but I would like to just kind of tell you What it is we're working
towards so parks and rec makes Bloomington a resilient healthier and more connected place to live and
play We're gonna talk about our master plan I know you all have heard me talk about our master plan
and the priorities that came out of it I'm going to be sharing those with council again An overview
of our department as it currently stands. We have 64 full-time staff positions
We have 87 permanent part-time employees Permanent just means there's no time limit on their part-time
employment with us That's actually a change that the department's made in the last year plus when we
got that category of employment allowed by our human resources department That does not count additional
seasonal temporary staff all told unique staff members that we have in a year Excluding full-time it's
in the 400s
So it's a lot of people that work for us across a year With uncertain revenues and property tax and
local income tax things yet to be determined and swirling We set out to prepare as flat of a budget
as possible Very difficult right now with the rising cost of everything with wage increases with things
like that So some total our budget is up about 4% in terms of the budgeted amount year over year and
and key budget needs and issues we're gonna be talking about in 2027 are maintaining and enhancing our
level of service. This goes back to our first master plan goal, continuing our meaningful community
impact, revenue streams are tighter, things are more expensive. We've seen partners, nonprofits in the
community even shutting down like Curls Inc. It's a tough time and so maintaining what we offer the
community is our first priority.
Also planning and investing in capital needs the board will be hearing much more about that at our special
September meeting And then this one's kind of broad but implementing priorities and actions that we
determined from the master plan Some quick 26 highlights that we're gonna mention to council as a way
of just sharing, you know a slice of everything it is that we do We've had these really great grand
balloon partnerships with IU arts and humanities There's a third one coming up
August 29th at switch yard Lots of natural resource and nature and urban green space highlights We achieved
Bee City USA certification for the first time thanks to Joanna and a group That worked on that certification
had another prescribed fire have maintained our bird town certification And in spring, I thought this
was a great highlight of the way that we provide connection with nature There was a very popular great
horned owl nest
on the Jackson Creek Trail that drew a crowd every day for probably a month. Sports, I wanted to mention,
I'm very proud. We have reduced rainouts at Winslow Sports Park by about 50% since last year. Of course,
some of that is weather dependent out of our hands, but a significant portion of that, I can't say exactly
how much, is also management practices by the staff, figuring out how to take care of and keep things
from raining out.
We've had far fewer frustrations, complaints, things like that coming to us from our baseball and softball
teams this year. I stopped by Twin Lakes recently, and there was a really, really strong seniors class
Wednesday mornings with about 40 seniors doing group exercise. Really great to see the different things
we do for the community. Community events, you know, by the end of the year, we'll have probably around
a million participations in our various events and programs.
sports leagues, things like that. A lot of those are our large community events, like the 4th of July
Parade, which is not exactly the 4th of July Parade seen here, but it's the aftermath on the beeline
of everyone coming and going from it. Youth Day at the Market, we will have four of those this year.
Those have been incredibly popular, and it's really fun to go visit and see what the kids are coming
up with and sharing. We've been able to get $60,000 plus in grants from the state,
for Banneker repairs, thousands of participations at Banneker camps. Other highlights, Urban Forestry's
had a $40,000 tree assistance program that's gone out to 17 households at or below the AMI to deal with
hazard trees on their property. That's through funding from the ESD department. City Legal,
Parks and engineering all work together to save about half of the trees that were slated to go out for
an in dot project on 10th Street. That is a significant win. We're gonna have the power line trail built
in another year or another month or so here. Installed new lights at the switch yard pavilion and operations
division has been working with ESD on a significant epic grant for energy efficiency improvements at
the Busker Chumlee Theater. Lots of great things.
The goals I'm going to be talking to council about include maintaining and enhancing our community impact,
investing in critical capital needs, updating our website registration and communication systems, which
that goal is a bit of an amalgamation of several different strategic actions that we identified in the
master plan, and updating our reporting on core performance metrics. So just to talk to you about those
four I'm gonna be talking about. The first goal, maintain enhanced community impact aligns with
almost verbatim, our first master plan priority. Significantly, we had to reabsorb security costs from
ARPA funding, which is no longer available. That is about half of the budget increase we're seeing for
next year, so we saw about a $500,000 increase. 250,000 of that is park security. It's still important
that we have park security, but we have made a cut from 2026 levels, knowing that we have to reabsorb
this back into the general fund. We've cut between 30 and 35%
of that budget, we believe we can continue to have effective security at that level while I hope, eventually,
to not need park-contracted security, at least not in any great quantity, or not for special events.
You're gonna hear me and staff talking about a focus on quality and partners and collaborators. We have
some really good examples of ways that we've focused on quality over quantity. For example, we're gonna
be thinking about that with concerts,
The Juneteenth example that happened, well, on June 19th was, I think, a really great example
of collaborating with partners for a really big, really great event, looking for ways to combine forces,
put on really high quality events. Grand Faloon is another example, and continuing on that trend. You're
gonna be hearing from us about investing in critical capital needs, a plan to issue a potential bond
in 2027, around $7 million.
we will be issuing a report and talking about that in September about the department's recommended priorities
for investment so we can get board feedback and public feedback on those priorities. In our general
fund for 27, the $245,000 in there does cover some critical things we need like backflow repairs, some
equipment, a new dump truck to replace an aging dump truck that's on the fritz, and some roofing related items.
Lastly, I mentioned this goal is a bit of an amalgamation of several different strategic actions. The
master plan did identify some needs in this area and we worked on some actions from that to modernize
and improve our reach and user experience across platforms. We've had a software action team really
diving in and looking at the software we use for registration, for promoting programs, whether we need
to enhance the one we're currently with or whether we need to move to a new one.
We've already been looking into that. That ties into broader efforts across the city that we've heard
about to update the city's website, which is desperately needed, and we're really hoping that that advances
in 2027, as well as relates to how we mail out the program guide and what's in it. If you notice, the
program guide you receive this time is about half the pages that it was before. Julie and her team have
been working on that to communicate critical information while also finding ways to save some cost.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the great success of our digital content team too and the reach and
engagement that they continue to have with social media and growing our presence there. And then lastly,
updating our core performance metrics. We were talking recently in our leadership team meeting and sort
of kind of had an epiphany and a recognition that you know what, over the past three, four years we've
Changed systems a lot in terms of how we report on goals to City Council and we had at first we had
Trello goals we had budget goals and Our department I think more than any other department in the city
is very diverse in terms of what we do the type of metrics and goals we're going to be tracking for
urban forestry are very different than community events are very different from cemeteries are very
different from Winslow Sports Park
But each area does have key things that they track and we're gonna be looking at that to bring it together
into a dashboard Universalizing as much as possible some of those metrics and then creating a dashboard
I'm not gonna say it's gonna be live because that's a lot of work but frequently updated dashboard That
we can have to share our community impact Those are the main things I wanted to hit on from the budget
presentation here I think the rest of the things you're somewhat aware of I will
We'll go through this slide and then I'll take any questions that you have. Overall, if you look across
our inventory of programs and initiatives from 26 to 27, they're largely the same. We're focused on
maintaining quality, partnerships, collaborations, all of those things that I just talked about. We
do plan to invest further in resiliency towards the city's climate action plan with electrification
funding from ESD. There'll be another $100,000 investment there next year.
the rec division is currently really reevaluating the direction and Purpose of our health and wellness
area and our partnership with IU School of Public Health They have a new Dean and potentially a new
emphasis on health and wellness again Which we're really interested in exploring from a recreation lens
And we're going to be partnering with City Bloomington utilities in looking at Stormwater detention
drainage at Winslow Sports Park. There's a three acre playground
playground parking lot there with zero type of stormwater interventions at all. And so every bit of
rain that falls on that parking lot runs off and out of that park, sometimes quite rapidly. And partnering
with CBU, we can do something really great there that can serve as a model for the community. I do have
a chart. This is our 2027 budget overall. You can see our personnel expenses are up about 3%.
That is due to cost of living adjustment, living wage increase, and tenure steps for staff. So very
much a fixed raise going across there. Supplies are up just a little bit, a marginal amount. Things
are more expensive. And then services are up largely because of that $250,000 coming back into the budget
for security. However, we've made some other cuts. The other things that have gone up are
and getting more expensive, our utilities are all going up across the board. And we've seen things like
liability, casualty, premiums going up quite heftily as well. So we have been able to mitigate that
somewhat with cuts in that area, but the 300 services line is up. And our capital line is largely the
same, similar to last year, and I touched on those items that are in there. We do project a budget deficit
again. The department typically enters a year with
a budget deficit on paper. I looked up some history of that just so we're familiar with our comfort
level with that. We have about $4.7 million cash reserve coming into the year in our general fund, a
very healthy reserve. Over the last five years, we've added about $2 million to that reserve with surpluses
in four of the past five years. On average, we started each of those five years with a $1.4 million
budget deficit on paper.
And then we have outperformed our revenue goals by about 107% and underperformed our spending to a tune
of about 88%. So starting with the deficit on paper is actually okay and advantageous to us because
we know there's some built-in savings throughout the year. This year, because of our expenses have gone
up 4%, but our property tax revenues have not gone up. They are flat. That deficit has grown a bit to
around $2 million.
We know that we will not finish, you know performance wise with the two million dollar deficit and that
we have cash reserves so I feel Comfortable with with where we are going into this year, but some longer-term
determinations are really gonna hinge on city and county discussions about property tax and still trying
to just understand the implications of Senate enrolled Act one there's a lot still not known and then
working with
The controller on their response with the county. There's some different levers that are held in different
places about local income tax, which could replace some of the growth we're going to be missing from
property tax. It's a very interesting time. We're lucky that we have stable, healthy, segregated cash
reserves for our department. I think cash reserves are meant for times like this, so we know we can
have stability, not have to make knee-jerk reactions or cuts while we figure out the bigger picture.
But there are long-term concerns lingering.
Will be happy to address any questions or concerns that you might have about the general fund budget
I Wanted to rent a shelter or on the registration process or rent a ball field and I guess my question is
Since it is wrapped up in the city website stuff. I mean is there is parks solely responsible for coming
up with a better registration system or could there be a Citywide overhaul that parks could be a part
of and this would be more streamlined this registration and good question so the the actual registration
system which we would take and use and in some regards already use the one we have is registration for
programs registration for sports leagues
Twin Lakes uses it for memberships Several areas also use it for point-of-sale merchandise Concessions
things like that. We're not consistent and part of what we want to do is one Minimize as many pay systems
as possible down into one streamlined Registration parks software. So there are softwares out there
that are basically built specifically for parks departments So that part is us You know, we already
have an amount in the budget
that we pay annually for our registration software. We're gonna compare costs with other ones out there,
features, things like that, and look at that. Those softwares typically integrate pretty seamlessly
with a city's website, and so there would be a moment where you're on our website and it says, you know,
click here for program registration, and then you would seamlessly move to the website that
is the registration software.
maybe without even realizing that you've gone to a separate system. So there's two things at play there.
One is we've gotta be reliant on the city's greater efforts to update the website in general, but we
have control over the registration software. Okay, all right, thank you for that. I hope I didn't just
accidentally reserve a baseball field, but I was just trying to see what was on there. All right, any
other questions for Tim about the general fund budget?
Yes All right, do we want to move to Put our support behind is Jim was good, too. I don't know. Does
Jim have any questions? No, okay. Okay. All right. Thanks. All right. Well, I'll make a motion to approve
or to move the 2027 parks journal fund budget and
forward to the City Council with a positive recommendation Okay in a roll call vote those in favor Israel
Herrera Kathleen Mills. I Ellen Rocky. I Jim Whitlach I Okay motion is carried to support Tim's general
fund budget for 2027 and then in item six Tim will also tell us about the 2027 non reverting budget
Yes, thank you for putting up with more of me here So this time I'm going to recommend that the board
of park commissioners Just reviews the 2027 non-reverting budget. So a couple procedural reminders the
20 the non-reverting budget is dictated by local city code in chapter Excuse me entitled to chapter
20 that designates certain entrepreneurial revenues to be able to go into a separate parks non-reverting account
which is then underneath the fiscal authority of the Board of Park Commissioners. This is a chance to
review the non-reverting budget. We do not need to have specific action on it tonight. The next step
would be if there are no concerns or no changes, we would bring a resolution to the board at the start
of the new year to adopt this budget. However, we've learned in past years that it's best for us to
maintain the same schedule with non-reverting and present it to you with the general fund because there
are certainly some things
can go back and forth, and the timeline that we work with the controller, it's important to dovetail
these together. I don't have a presentation on this one. It's a little more straightforward. And the
table in the staff report first really tells the story that our non-reverting account is healthy. We
do budget a slight deficit in the non-reverting as well. Not as much. I'm sorry, Tim, I'm sorry. The
link in our agenda
is taking me to a second copy of the general fund budget. So I don't think we have a staff report for
the non-reverting. OK, I can get that. It's the same thing. No, I have two different things. So that
worksheet, but then those two. But that's just the general fund budget again. It's the same amount twice.
When I click the link in the staff report, the one that says budget overview worksheet, that is pulling up
PDF of the non-reverting by category for 2027. Is that what you're getting? Yeah, so if I click budget
worksheet I get like a table, but then when I click staff report, I'm just getting the same memo again
The same general fund memo. Yeah So just didn't know if you have a separate cover sheet oh Yes, we do I
And if it's something we just want to take a look at later, if you don't mind. We can, since we don't
need specific action tonight. But if you have that worksheet pulled up. Yeah, I have the worksheet.
We generally have the same information in there. Sure. So we can take a look at that right now. OK.
The only thing you're really missing was some of the background I was just talking about. And importantly,
there's one table comparing 26 to 27. In 2026, Molly is pulling it up.
and we can make this available. In 2026, we budgeted a deficit of 172,000 in the non-reverting out of
about 2.3 million expense. For 2027, we're actually reducing that deficit. We're already outperforming
our revenue by quite a bit in non-reverting. This year, we're pretty conservative. The net budget deficit
for next year is negative 116,000.
I feel very comfortable that we've actually moved that one in a good direction, reduced the budget deficit
there, and have this going in a good direction. Most of this is similar program support as previous
years. Significantly, there's a couple expenses in category four in non-reverting, namely one at Twin
Lakes to refinish the floors, which is a regular periodic maintenance item that needs to be done.
And one at Twin Lakes Sports Park to replace degraded railing that is in poor shape So all of the category
information that the staff report really summarizes what's in this table So you have the full information
at your fingertips and we can can look at this over the coming months before we have to appropriate
Via resolution in January and resolve any questions or issues, but I will be happy to talk about anything
right now if needed
All right, any other questions or comments for Tim So we can just hold off on any action on this yes,
we'll make sure we we Amend and get that staff report out appropriately so that you can look at this
and then if there are any concerns before we make you know An appropriation resolution at the start
of the year. We would want to discuss that ahead of time All right
I Have it open and I think Molly has it open. Yes, so we will We will redistribute that appropriately
Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Thank you Tim and then in the report section this evening first one Leslie
Brinson will tell us about Benchmarking which I thought was interesting idea. There you go.
Is that your idea? Uh, I
It was a joint effort between Tim and I. Each year, the National Parks and Recreation Association puts
together... Was that a nice way of saying that? I forgot to introduce myself to you. Leslie Brinson,
Recreation Division Director. Each year, the National Parks and Recreation Association puts out an agency
performance review report. In this particular year, over 800 organizations, 850 agencies provided information
into this report.
We also entered our information into this metric system They pull all the data together and put it into
a report so that you can see where your parks system is Relative to other park systems. They do break
it down Not only as just general park systems, but depending on the number of people in your community
You can compare yourself to similar type organizations. So Tim and I took the report and we pulled out some
Metrics benchmarking items that we thought were appropriate and just kind of compared to where we are
with again parks departments with a similar size community The numbers are based on 2025 And it's important
to note that not everybody thinks of the terms the same so when we talk about trails it might mean one
thing another community might include a
Sidewalk message, you know what? I mean like so some of the language or so. It's not an exact science.
I guess I would say But you can see the first one in properties trails and assets a typical parks department
of our size has one park for every 2333 residents in Bloomington we have one park for every 2450 residents
so we're right on par for what we do that number does include
Parks nature reserve cemeteries, but does not include things like Banneker or Frank Southern or places
that might also have green space. It is truly just talking about parks and trails The next one a typical
parks and rec agency manages seven point seven acres of parkland per 1,000 residents we manage 28
2.1 acres of parkland for 1,000 residents. So it's a pretty drastic increase of the amount of space
that we are managing I think it also goes to we might have less parks But our parks tend to be bigger
in size and so a lot of communities might have a lot more Neighborhood or smaller parks which changes
how many parks they have per residents we have less parks, but they tend to have larger acreage in them and
Overall agencies tend to have one playground per 3,656 residents. We have one playground per 2,975 residents.
So in general, we have more playgrounds than a typical agency of our size.
Most agencies of our size manage or maintain 18 miles of trails. We do 34 miles of trails I think it
speaks highly to what Mick was saying about how our community just continues to ask for trails and we
continue to deliver at a impressive rate
On the staffing level typical parks and recreation has twelve point two FTEs for every ten thousand
residents We have fifteen point one FTEs for every ten thousand residents So we do have a little bit
more staffing per resident. That is a combination of full-time and seasonal hours worked in that statistic
From an expense and revenue side, a typical parks agency has an operating expenditure per capita of
$131.13. We have a per capita spending of $158.12, so we're spending more per person in our community.
A typical Parks and Recreation recovers 34% of their annual operating expenditures from their non-tax
revenue. We recover 36% from non-tax revenue, so we're right on par there. So that's that non-reverting
budget you were just looking at. And a typical Parks and Rec Agency has $43.19 revenue per capita.
We have 57.8 revenue per capita. So we're making a little bit money per person as well.
Programming wise the report is way more
budget and property and less about programming, but we wanted to make sure we at least added one programming
note so that you could we could highlight our staff the typical Park and Rec agency offers 300 programs
annually and of those 80% of them are fee based we offer 325 programs annually and only 60% of ours
are free base or fee based so we're offering not only more programming, but we're offering more either
no or low cost and
In conclusion the bit this benchmarking exercise shows that Bloomington parks continues to outperform
comparable agencies across the Country in particular department manages nearly four times as much acreage
as national average and
Obviously the 1200 plus acres of Griffey Lake nature preserves plays a big part in why that number is
so high But even if you removed Griffey Lake, we would still be at thirteen point six acre acres managed
Perth one thousand So we would still nearly twice the national average even if you removed Griffey from
that graph
Compared with our average numbers of parks per residence, Bloomington actually has a similar number
of parks, but we manage, again, much more acreage. It's advantageous as in a general multiple. Small
parks take up more time to maintain as our larger parks. We have 34 miles of paved trails and also stand
out as being well above the national average. Although through this benchmark, it's harder to consider
since it does not have direct correlation to the population size of each department.
The benchmarking exercise shows that Bloomington parks continues to operate and be responsible for a
strong system of parks trails Playgrounds and more while exceeding natural averages national averages
of revenues and cost recovery However, maintaining this robust system also takes both staff time and
fiscal resources and we must steward our system carefully to maintain these standards on the programming
side we continue to offer many programs but benchmarking again shows We need to look at additional
appropriate fees
for some currently programs So it's great that we're offering more at less But we need to continue to
look at that average. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions about this report Okay, thanks Leslie
that it was interesting to see the comparisons Yeah, and the bright spots with the playgrounds and the
trails and yeah It's good to put some numbers through what we think we already do, you know how we feel
but it's good to put some data behind it and
Yeah, the green space of the cemetery does is included in our parking acreage Okay, any other questions
Thanks Leslie All right, and then it's almost the end of the aquatic season. So Chris has the 2026 season
update Hello, I'm Chris hammer come the facility manager for the pools Yeah, just have kind of a report
for you. Thank you report for you on aquatic season Obviously with the price schedule coming up We want
to make sure we got the aquatics report to you guys before we get into the the price schedule for next year
2026 aquatic season had several accomplishments. It also had several challenges as you guys are well
aware Major focus obviously was just figuring out what was going on with Mills pool Staff discovered
when we tried to fill it up that it was not filling all the way So a lot of time was spent by mark and
his crew to try to figure out What exactly was going on with that? we
After Park staff members could not determine the nature of the leak a leak specialist company was called
in company spent several days investigating And we were able to mitigate it enough so that we could
open mills pool obviously a little bit late But we don't have an exact diagnosis and we still have to
look into it a little bit more as we get into the end of the season We've received a quote for around
$18,000 for additional leak repairs, but are not confident performing this work will until we figure
out exactly what's going on with it and
Further discussions about repairs at mills pool are warranted Staffing we've been really blessed to
have a lot of people return over the last couple years It's it's something that helps us out allow a
lot with our staff continuity this year We had 60 of our 84 total staff members were returners. So we
had 71% staff retention rate, which was
super helpful for us. We did have one staff member that I want to call out specifically that is leaving
or left in the middle of the season. Evan Gray was our aquatic specialist. He was super helpful to us
as we came in and knew very little about aquatics. We were ice arena people. So figuring that out as
we came in, he had a lot of experience in aquatics, helped us out a ton. And now he left. He went on
to start his nursing career after he graduated college. And now we have Leo Nelson as our new aquatic
specialist.
Costs about operating outdoor pools continues to increase chemical costs staffing expenses facility
maintenance All the things that we've spent several of these meetings discussing Obviously, we continue
to see the pressure on the sustainability of the current operating model
We Brian has spent three hundred thirty one thousand dollars as of August 14th Obviously, we still have
a few more weeks of the season left as opposed to three hundred twenty seven thousand dollars in all
of 2025 Despite attempts to lower chemical costs staff operating model overhauls other things that we've
tried to put in place to lower those costs Mills spent just under $20,000 less in 20 then in 2025 despite
being shut down for almost an entire month
And then there those notice those are very noticeable, especially late in the season when MCC SC returns
We just don't get enough people coming in and it's it's a challenge to deal with that Evaluation is
required to determine whether the current operating schedule remains the most effective use of department
resources Alright, so yeah, I'll pull up here I just want to show you guys a couple of the numbers here
the outline will show you how many pool patrons came in expenses versus revenue and then
just a discussion about facilities in the future going forward. So in 2025, those were the numbers,
about 11,000 at Mills, 23,000 at Bryan. Through August 14th, obviously Bryan has had more. Some of that
is because Mills was closed, so more people were going over to Bryan. And Mills obviously was not open
for a month, so that's part of the numbers there. Rentals, we had 44 hours rented this year.
563 kids were approved on the pool fee waiver. That was a change that we made of Now the kids are the
ones that get approved and then they they bring the adults with them This year we had a we had a lot
of people come to the pool movie this year We had 73 patrons come to it last year. We had two pool movies
and only had 71 total So this was this was a little bit of an improvement and almost 4,000
camp participations this year one of the thing I want one of the things that I wanted to point out here is
Alec, who is the sports specialist, did a bunch of research figuring out how many people are actually
coming in on the fee waiver. This is total fee waiver entries. If we show up as a family, it's not just
one, it's all four of us showing up. That's the total average per day that we're open, and then you
can see as we go up in temperature there as well. Expenses versus revenue, Brian.
You can see expenses staffing cost continues to be the highest expense staffing all the lifeguards and
attendance You can see here as well Rentals and swim lessons on there and our concessions Alec our sports
specialist completely runs the concessions. He did a really good job this year That's obviously only
through August 14th as well Mills
You can see all those expenses numbers there. I'll just leave them up for a second so you guys can take
a look. All right. And then this, I think this is probably what you guys are most interested in is the
cost recovery totals. So we see cost recovery at Bryan is 76%. At Mills is 24%. And then our total is
63% across both pools. That's part of our discussion now as part of our master plan
Goal setting is kind of changing the way that our cost recovery Percentages work and making it less
split up by facility and more split up by what programs were actually offering and that kind of thing
Yeah, so one of the things as we talk about the future of the pools This is something that we brought
up last year with the August pool numbers Obviously, we don't have the numbers in yet for this year,
but I just wanted to bring this up again as we look at this
We're seeing, if we look at just weekend days, when we get into those August times, we're seeing that
during the season, if you count just weekend days, we're actually operating in a little bit of a surplus,
and then when we get into August, we end up losing almost $40,000 in August. We don't get the number
of people coming to the pool, for one, especially now as we move into these days where it's gonna be
80 degrees or less, there's just going to be fewer people coming. And then we also deal with, we've
still got to run all the pumps all the time, we've still got to keep the chemicals in the pool so that
it stays balanced and all that. So that's where that expense comes in. All right. Aging facilities feature
use. Mills Pool obviously caused the leak, caused the delay to opening.
We're having that meeting to discuss the capital bond spending including potential pool renovation Swim
lesson numbers continue to be a problem as we as we look going forward It's something that we've talked
about potentially doing partnerships or just completely overhauling our swim lesson program And then
our August usage of Brian pool And then in Mills Mills usage numbers just suggests that maybe a change
in strategy might be needed one of the things that Alec did when he went through and researched a bunch
of these numbers for us and
Mills revenue didn't cover the cost of staff For 43 of the 45 days it was open Just the cost of staff
not the cost of the pool chemicals and all that stuff just the cost of the lifeguards and the attendants
that are there And the two days that it did cover were the first two days that it was open when we had
an issue at Brian and Brian was closed So it's it's really it creates a challenge going forward and
like I said, it suggests we may need to change the strategy so part of that conversation
We're considering exploring an alternative operating strategy for Mills pool that places a greater emphasis
on aquatics programming So instead of having so much just open swim time where we're kind of unsure
what the revenue numbers are gonna look like Maybe using Mills as something that offers more programming
so we could run longer versions of swim lessons there we could run more Aqua fitness or different things
like that that would that would we would know how much revenue we're gonna make and we can staff it
for that specifically as part of that we would
We would still want to have certain times that are open swim times as well It wouldn't be just closed
Mills down other than this program and it would be Trying to figure out what are our prime times for
for that open swim and going forward This approach could continue could allow the department to continue
using Mills as an important community aquatic facility While focusing its operation on activities that
require dedicated water space and scheduled access I
Brian would continue to be the primary general outdoor use pool. We see that in the numbers almost four
times as many people are going to Brian as are going to Mills, but we would really prefer to you know,
we want to try to keep Mills open if we can and move forward on Just making it a sustainable long term
We want to gather initial feedback from you guys on on this programming focus model Any decision is
also continued contingent on the mills pool repairs as well I mean obviously we have to figure out what's
going on with that
Before we can move too much forward on anything We also want to discuss just aligning the end of the
outdoor pool season more closely with the beginning of the MCC calendar We talked about the numbers
a little bit We we believe that closing both outdoor pools when MCC returns to school provides a clear
seasonal operating window reduces our staff Issues that we run into at the end of the year all the all
the people that we rely on are all students either in college or high school we have very few
Not high school or college students and they all go back to school and it's just a real pain to try
to staff at the end of the year And it also would limit limit operating costs We recognize that pools
also provide an important service and outlet to the community and long-term decisions may need to be
made after capital investment priorities is set and decisions are made We obviously one of the couple
of things that are coming up we want to consider significant renovations and that upcoming
parks bond that we're having that meeting about We're considered we want to have the discussion about
closing both pools when MCC starts the the school year Transition mills to focus on that programming
side and then we want to one of the things that we really want to focus on Coming this this coming year
is redesigning our swim lessons I'm happy to answer any questions you have All right. Thanks Chris I'm
sure I've said this the last couple of years, but I mean speaking as a
someone who works at MCCSC, it's just absurd to me that the hottest month of the entire year is like
kids, for the most part, aren't going to the pool because they're back in school and they're busy and
it's so silly. But I know you don't have any control over that. I think also along with that, once school
starts back up, they all start back up their sports and all that. So they're busy all the time. They
don't have time. Yeah. So my question is about, I'm curious if you have any theories
the swim lessons being downed if you know our people do you think kids are going on their let their
lessons to the YMCA the IU outdoor pool or they're just not as many kids taking swimming lessons or
We've had some conversations with Bill Ramos who has been a big part of IU Pools in general for a long
time and so we're kind of hoping to pick his brain a little bit on how we can improve our swim lessons
I in my personal opinion one of the biggest challenges we face is
We get our staff about a week and a half before the pools open And so and we've got to train them all
and the lifeguard duties and all that kind of stuff And so swim lessons has kind of been an afterthought
on that We just we need them we need them to make the pool safe first before we can focus on swim lessons
versus if you look at a YMCA or an IU pool they can train their staff and
any time throughout the year because they have access to the indoor facilities. So that has
been a conversation topic that we've had internally. We haven't talked with IU yet, but potentially
doing some kind of a partnership or something like that where we might be able to improve our swim lessons
that way. But to me, that seems like the biggest focus. My wife used to teach IU swim lessons, and that's
one of the things she's talked about a lot too. OK. That's interesting. Thanks. Yeah. Any other questions
or comments for Chris?
meals or the options in order to solve this situation. And the other activities, the aqua fitness or
the lab swimming, that won't be just for children but also for adults and for students who are not part
of the YMCA. So I think that is one thing that we can do for solving that problem with meals.
Because the balance is very high, it's visible. Something is happening. Something is happening there,
and something should be done to see what is working incorrectly there. Oh, not incorrectly, but what
could we offer to have more people there? Yeah, I was curious, the revenue,
Like on one of those slides the revenues kind of down on mills. Is that do we include? Like fee waivers,
I guess like we know like our Do we think about like how many users are still using that pool even though
maybe we don't we're not Like accepting admission fees from some of those we do We don't consider fee
waivers as part of the revenue
Anymore it was something that we considered in the past when we had People the Parks Foundation was
funding. Yeah. Yeah was funding it where we had the stay cool numbers and stuff like that We don't consider
fee waivers as part of the as part of the revenue I would note that overall more fee waiver users are
coming to Brian and they are to Mills and I would say that
It was kind of surprising to me. We have 563 kids approved on the fee waiver, and we only are averaging
26 at Bryan and 18 per day at Mills. That seems crazy to me. It seems like it would be way higher than
that with as many kids as are on the fee waiver program, but it's just something that I wanted to include.
I don't have a
An answer for you really just other than just I just think it'd be interesting to see like so then like
what's the ratio there like I know there's more 26 people maybe per day coming to Brian and it versus
18 at Mills but like so what it what is the percentage though of the total user group though so like
26 of I don't know if there's 150 people coming to Brian and
40 people coming to Mills per day, but just kind of like understanding what the you know What the what
is the percentage of pool users that is using a fee waiver to enter each pool? I don't have those numbers
today, but I know yeah, just something that we could like maybe look at as well and then yeah, I think
just getting a little bit more information about
peak hours for open swim at mills just to because I do think I agree that the programming for introducing
that to to Mills as an option to kind of boost revenue and just overall use of the pool but then just
ensuring that you know we've got we're still got
Plenty of open swim time for kids to show up. I'm hoping that it drives interest in Mills again, too.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's something that... Hey, Mills is the programming. Yeah, I think a lot
of people just don't know about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We'd be super excited to go do our swim lessons
over there and stuff. Yeah. I think that... Well, and frankly, the people I know who use Mills are like,
love it because it is not brand. I much prefer going to Mills with my family. Yeah, same. I mean,
it's like... Yeah. It's much quieter. It's so much quieter and just more chill. Yeah. Yep, absolutely.
rental 40 hours, rented this year. So can you explain more about the rentals, Chris? Yeah, so actually
that's part of the conversation about the programming as well as we would hope to open up a little bit
more rental space throughout the week. Because one of the challenges that we deal with with our rentals
is if a little kid wants to rent the pool for their birthday party, they have to wait until after seven.
And for some families, that's way too late. I wouldn't rent the party, rent the pool for my little kid.
We had 44 hours of rentals this year split between the two pools. It's down a little bit But also we
missed almost a month of mills that would have normally been open And right. Yeah, go ahead right now.
There's at 715 to to 915 930 and they Start They start in June and They're Thursday Friday and Saturday evenings
Just for people or companies also renting the space It depends sometimes we have Church groups that
rent it sometimes we have school events that rent it and then sometimes it's just an individual wants
to rent it as a birthday party
Like an individual family will say, hey, we're gonna have our birthday party here. Oh, that one person?
Yeah. No, no, no. That's a lot of money for one person. Yeah, that's what I like to do, yeah. Just get
those pesky kids out of the way. Yeah, exactly, yeah. My one lane. That'd be funny, yeah. So I guess
on that note, too, the town I grew up in, we had night swim, seven to nine, actually, like the pool
closed for a portion of time. I'm sure we had that at some point in Bloomington. Not sure if we did
or if that ever went away.
And obviously, we're extending staff time, you know, for lengthening the number of hours that were open,
but just curious if we have, like, ever thought about adding that as, like, an additional source of
revenue, like, and just, I don't know if, like, some families, like, it's like, if their parents do
work and can't take them to the pool during the day, come home, have dinner, and then could, like, go
swim in the evenings, like, since it's so late, so late. We have considered it. Yeah.
that makes me particularly nervous about that is just a lighting situation currently. I haven't done
enough research on it, but you're required to have a certain amount of lighting if you're gonna have
night swim. And I don't think that we meet that requirement right now. So I just would worry about it
being unsafe with being that late. But I mean, even seven to nine, we're open for pool rentals. So we
could probably do like a seven to nine, but it's just something that the pool schedule has kind of been set
11 to 7, so we haven't added that, but it's something we could consider for sure. Okay. Yeah. I can
add something else, but I can't remember. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Awesome.
Thank you. Yep. And then Chris has also got another report this evening about the slightly beleaguered
Frank Southern Ice Arena. Yes. We finished painting today, so it looks like an ice arena now.
You guys know we had the ammonia leak in March of 2026 two days before the arena scheduled shutdown
date We've been preparing to safely open for this season We were obviously we've talked a lot about
different things that we had been doing we had been working on the II AR standards We had been working
on just making trying to put things in place more more
Computer records of different maintenance items that we're doing and stuff like that just so we have
all that in one place After the league staff members completed mandatory reporting to the EPA We held
an incident debrief with the Bloomington Fire Department Monroe County emergency management and Monroe
County schools We've prepared we prepared a list of things that we have presented to you guys in the
past of things that need to be done in this
This report was presented in March of 2026 We have worked through a bunch of these things that we were
supposed to get done before we open Staff met with representatives of the EPA in early June and received
a report of recommendations from the EPA in July that is linked within your Park board items here We
met with the Bloomington Fire Department this week to do our tabletop discussion and
Had some conversations with them about a couple more things they'd like to see But they seemed overall
pretty happy with everything that's in place We met with MCC to provide an update on you know work and
what we've been doing We'll continue to have those conversations going forward facility checklists and
and reporting procedures have been updated like we talked about to just make sure that everything is
standardized in a document that we can see and we can present or pull or whatever we need at any given time and
And we've started our conversations with our stakeholder groups to discuss one of the two options of
reinvestment, either building a new ICE facility or reinvesting in our current facility. The table on
the, I think it's the third page, contains all of the items that have been checked off. Three significant
items remain in progress. Installation of the iWash station, which you guys approved as part of your
consent calendar today.
We're working on installing a panic door exiting the compressor room And then we need some diagrams
that we're waiting on from our ammonia contractor These items are are technically not required to be
completed until 2029 But as part of our discussions we wanted to get get them done before we open up
for this year We I have another discussion that I would like to open up with you guys so staff would
like to begin to also begin a discussion with the board regarding a
potential shared stewardship model for the ice arena. The goal would be to explore ways for the ice
arena and its primary user groups to share responsibility for certain aspects of arena operations while
helping control the cost of ice. So one of the most important things for us, we don't want to charge
exorbitant fees. Hockey's already a really expensive sport. Figure skating's already a really expensive
sport. So how can we keep the ice price as low as we can while also not losing a bunch of money and
putting ourselves in danger of losing the ice arena?
as an initial concept We would charge whatever price we just be determined in the price schedule next
month And then we would say if your group wants to volunteer this many hours We'll bring that ice price
down a little bit and that would help us because one of our as you saw with the pools the biggest cost
for us is our staffing and and obviously anything that's required as far as safety or
Supervisors that have keys and all that would still be our staff but We could have somebody that can
stand out there and make sure that kids are being safe while they're doing Public skate, you know, we
don't necessarily need to have us especially train some person to be out there for that This would be
developed as a structured program with clearly defined responsibilities training requirements supervision
appropriate limitations We want to make sure that we're doing it properly
And it's something that has been used quite a bit in Minnesota, which is kind of the gold standard for
ice arenas and specifically community ice arenas where they, they're almost all in Minnesota are owned
and operated by their parks departments. And that's one of the, we are one of the dying breed, honestly,
with ice arenas that are owned by a parks department because so many places have given them over to private
Entities and then the prices go through the roof and kids don't get to play for for as cheap as they
were and that kind of thing so it's something that we really want to focus on keeping and We think that
this is something that would help us do that We would be interested in hearing any concerns or questions
that you guys have with this potential path Well, I think that's a creative idea and I don't know if
the YMCA still does this but years ago they had something similar where you could get it sort of a discounted
membership if you volunteered in there and
As you say sometimes you just needed some people to you didn't need to any special skills, right? Just
needed humans there Yeah, so yeah, I think that's a creative suggestion and I also appreciate that You
know the feeling that as parks are I mean it you want to keep the prices down you want to keep it available
for everyone so yeah, we've had a lot of success this will be
In the report as we get into the end of the season, but our house hockey program Thanks in large part
to you guys Approving the prices that you have our house hockey program has grown tremendously in 2023
We had five total kids that were registered for just house hockey Outside of the travel program and
this past season we ended up with 57 kids And we're continuing to expand that program going into this
year so I'm really excited about that and
You know, we've seen a lot of success with that. But like I said, we just want to make sure that we're
we're operating it in a way that Allows us to continue doing it forever and doesn't ever get to the
point where hey Why are we losing so much money at the ice arena? We just need to be done with it volunteer
share program is great and kind of in the same spirit as You know everything else of just making sure
it's a community space I mean the only thing I would say is like
from a liability standpoint, just making sure that people are trained and that we're covered that way,
so that if there were to be another leak or something else happen that it's all above board. What's
the open date for the? September 1st. Coming right up. We're going to be building ICE all next week.
You guys should stop by. It'll be great. I'm very excited about it. That's awesome. Yeah. Did anyone
else have a question about the ICE arena?
Okay, I just was gonna I thought of the thing This has made me remember the thing about the pools too,
which is do you get a sense that most of your guards are also guarding at IU or the why or and like
working in multiple places and it has there ever been like a lifeguard share like Partnership of like
those employees or yeah would staff both you know could
Could float between different facilities or something like that like shared with and I guess and I assume
our rates are probably also Comparable with what like like most lifeguards in Bloomington are getting
paid the same amount no matter where they work We pay our guards significantly more more. Okay other
places do so we have seen we have seen a lot of guards come over from The why specifically I think people
are pretty
Stay at the at the IU pools because it's a you know, they've worked there during their while they're
going to school and that kind of thing but We have seen several guards that have come over from the
Y And we we do we pay our staff significantly more than they're getting paid at other places Living
wage it's all living wage requirement. Okay. Yeah, we just pay them what the living wage requirement
is so But we we
do have a few guards that work at both the Y and our pools. And some of them are swim lesson instructors
at both or different things like that. But it's something that going forward, we really wanna explore
more of that partnership idea. I know, like we talked about with talking to Bill Ramos, just trying
to figure out what ways we can work together and try to offer, for our pool at Bryan,
And Mills we're the only pools that really have slides that people that kids can come and use So what
can we offer that's not necessarily competing with these other pools, but we can all join together to
share Sharing the resources that we have so that we can offer everything that possible to our community
Thank you Chris, thanks for all that information All right, and then then we come to public comment which I
Any unknown faces now Leslie says no public comment. So is I don't know if Molly if there's anyone online
No one online. Okay Okay, and then back over to Tim you have any reminders? I'm gonna keep it short
and sweet because we've talked at you a lot this evening our next regular meeting is September 17th
a normal Thursday 5 p.m. Meeting that will be for normal business including any follow-up we have from
this evening and
As well as the first look at fee schedule updates We're going to do that again in two phases where we
bring them to you one month get feedback And then look to adopt those in October And then we have the
special meeting on September 28th Which will be focused on the facility and capital investment report
Which we will get out to the public and you via a press release on board, etc
probably a couple weeks beforehand is what Julie and I were talking about. So that report could be reviewed.
We'll invite public comment at that meeting. We'll have an online public comment period after the meeting
as well to just ensure folks can have their voices heard. And Chris and others have been inviting different
stakeholder groups involved that might want to be there to give public comment to that meeting as well.
Lastly, the link to the non-reverting report in the agenda has been fixed. So you can now see that there.
and that will be posted to onboard as a follow-up. Okay. All right. Thank you, Tim and Molly, and thank
you to all staff who presented. With that, I'll adjourn the August meeting of the Bloomington Board
of Park Commissioners.