The Starkville Parks Commission passed its Fiscal Year 2015 budget Tuesday during its monthly meeting but will ask aldermen to pitch in more money to pay for utility expenses.
The budget projects $1,070,905 in revenues and $1,153,500 in expenses. That’s an $82,595 shortfall.
The budget projects $250,000 in expenses for utility bills, which Starkville Parks and Recreation Director Herman Peters says are increasing by the year due to increased participation of six to eight percent per year. The commission passed the budget on the condition that it approached Starkville aldermen and requested an extra $125,000 for utility expenses.
Commission Chair Dan Moreland said the city has not adjusted how much it provides SPR to accompany the rising costs of its operation.
“When we built this building, we knew we were going to have to fund it and staff it,” Moreland said. “Instead of increasing it, (the board of aldermen) cut us … $5,800 a month. What we get from the city each month went down $5,800 when we built this. It should have gone up $5,800 because of having to cover the expense of the building. The increase of the utilities is what made us tighten our belt so much.”
While the commission did not raise player fees for sports, it did approve requiring the city’s baseball and soccer associations to pay SPR $15 per participant instead of $6. Those two leagues are independent of SPR but use SPR facilities.
SPR operates other sports such as basketball and flag football as well as softball. According to recent Dispatch reports, aldermen suggested raising player fees by as much as $30 to generate more revenue for SPR. Those fees, for now, will remain where they have been.
Rental fees for city pavilions and the Needmore Center have gone up, a move which Peters said he hopes also offsets some costs.
“If you increase (the $55 player fee for basketball) $30 per kid, that’s $85,” Peters said. “If a parent has three kids, somebody’s not going to get a chance to play. That’s not our goal.”
The commission also approved a projected $560,000 budget generated by 40 percent of the city’s 2 percent food and beverage tax for $380,000 in bond payments and $180,000 in park improvements, such as new scoreboards, slides, and basketball courts as well as roof improvements to the Sportsplex’s board meeting room, which currently has a leak.
In 2013, a report estimated the entity, which is independent of Starkville and outside the control of its aldermen, owed Starkville Electric Department more than $100,000 in back payments and forecasted overdue fees and expected usage at $180,000 for the fiscal year.
Before the current fiscal year began Oct. 1, Starkville’s three-person budget committee recommended advancing $60,000 to Parks to pay shortfalls for the previous fiscal year, and the full board of aldermen went on to approve the bailout and call for more in-depth fiscal reports from the organization. The city will begin drafting $5,000 per month beginning in April to recoup its bailout.
Nathan Gregory covers city and county government for The Dispatch.
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