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Fee-Based Plan Under Consideration

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By STEPHEN HAMMILL

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 2, 2008

WESTCHASE - WESTCHASE - About 40 residents voiced fears about planned cuts to after-school and summer-school programs and staffing during a town hall meeting Thursday at the Westchase Recreation Center.
Answering questions were Mark Thornton, director of the county's Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department, and Rich Reidy, aide to County Commissioner Ken Hagan.

The cuts, proposed this month, would affect the Out of School programs in each of the county's 42 recreation centers.

One option on the table involves saving the programs by transferring the operations to organizations such as the YMCA or the Boys & Girls Clubs.

The plan would affect 71 of about 200 full-time positions, converting some to part time and eliminating others.

It was that aspect of the plan that has Westchase parents and opponents to the plan most upset.

"As parents, we bring them here because of the coaches," said Rebecca Gordon of Westchase, who has two children in both the after-school and summer programs. "They love these kids. They treat them as their own, and this is not just four walls to shove my kid in while I'm at work ... This is their home away from home."

The 43-year-old programs serve approximately 5,800 children a year, with nearly 3,000 on a waiting list. Parents pay nothing for the after-school program. The summer program costs $50.

It was Westchase parents who began an e-mail campaign this month to save the programs and the staff.

Their idea: Implement a modest fee to keep the programs intact, an idea not previously considered by the county commission or parks department.

"That is a plan they are working on right now," Reidy said. "The squeaky gate idea works, and you guys have been really good at it, and that's a compliment."

Any fee plan must be readied by a public meeting on July 17, when county commissioners will discuss budget alterations. Reidy encouraged those in attendance to tell commissioners they support a fee-based plan in writing before then.

Changes to the programs will be implemented in October.

"There will be a program in some form or fashion," Thornton promised the audience.

Residents said they didn't want a shadow of the former programs, but something unchanged.

"The price is important, but it's also the quality," said Westchase resident Gemma Pineda, who has three children in the programs.

Others wanted to know how such drastic cuts could have been considered without consulting residents in the first place.

"We didn't know two years ago we'd be here," Thornton told them.

The county spends about $16 million on the programs. Any new plan must make up the money that was to be saved by cutting staff.

Amendment 1, Florida's constitutional property-tax-relief amendment, "has dramatically altered the way our government is going to operate from now on," Reidy told them.

"We want to keep the program as is - no changes," Reidy said, suggesting fees might be assessed on a sliding scale.

Thornton said raising the necessary funds through fees would not be easy.

"Our costs, per child, per week, are $50; that's $2,400 per child, per year," he said. "That's not an amount we will probably get to."

Even if a fee-based plan can make up the needed money, Thornton warned of two potential pitfalls.

"Charging a fee requires child care licensing, which would drop capacity for the after-school to 3,000 kids because of square footage in the facilities," he said.

He said they could ask county commissioners for an exemption from having to secure child care licenses for the recreation facilities as a way around the problem.

Kevin Kenny with the Northdale Recreation Center broached the idea of running the fee-based program through the nonprofit, citizen-action group Friends of the County Parks to avoid the licensing issue.

Another problem: Busing children to after-school programs will cease in the fall. Thornton said between 3,000 and 4,000 children use the buses.

The center, adjacent to Westchase Elementary School, is one of 13 Thornton said would not be seriously affected by the elimination of busing.

Reidy closed the meeting by stressing that the programs' fates would likely sit atop the agenda at the July 17 meeting.

"If the summer-camp program closes, more than 3,000 children will be displaced," he said. "We understand that. We don't want to curtail these programs, we want to expand them."

Reporter Stephen Hammill can be reached at (813) 865-1523 or at shammill@tampatrib.com.

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