Lawrence Parks and Recreation staff members won’t share the actual proposed prices for rec center memberships until next month, but they did share further details and plans with advisory board members Monday.
The city has never charged residents to use recreation centers. In 2023, the city planned to implement fees but reversed course after proposed fees were met with concerns from dozens of members of the public.
This year, the Parks, Recreation and Culture department is proposing charging membership fees as a way to offset its $1.8 million portion of the city’s projected budget shortfall of more than $6 million.
Lindsay Hart, assistant director of recreation, told the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board that staff members are proposing options for passes for access to use all facilities — Sports Pavilion Lawrence, the Community Building, and the East Lawrence and Holcom Park Recreation Centers — or just for the East Lawrence and Holcom Park rec centers.
They’re proposing day passes, punch cards for occasional visits, and monthly and annual memberships. Pricing would differentiate between city residents and nonresidents.
Plans include tiered pricing by age and household type, including rates for adults, ages 18 to 59; youths, ages 5 to 17; seniors, ages 60 and up; and households, which would include up to five people.
Youths ages 5 to 17 would be able to enter rec centers for free from 3 to 5 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, when Lawrence Public Schools have early dismissal.
Many community members, including some advisory board members, have raised concerns about fees and other barriers for financially stressed families to access the rec centers.
Hart said staff members are looking at “qualified rates” that would be 60% lower than regular-price rates for annual memberships and punch cards. Showing a KanCare card or proof of qualification for free or reduced-price lunches in the school district would be two ways that people could qualify for lower rates, but there could be others ways as well.
Board member Marilyn Hull asked what the rates will be.
“We’re not sharing those tonight,” Hart said. “So we’re still right in the middle of our community engagement, and we’re continuing with our focus groups, our survey results, our popups, and we’re continuing to gather that feedback, and then we will continue to take that into account.”
“So the advisory board has no knowledge of what these fees are going to be, that are going to be presented to our — who we report to, which is the City Commission?” Hull asked.
Luis Ruiz, director of parks, recreation and culture, said the fees will be included in the agenda for the advisory board’s Monday, July 14 meeting and the Lawrence City Commission’s Tuesday, July 15 meeting.
He said the staff members still want to run some numbers by focus groups and see what kinds of reactions they get.
Survey results
Porter Arneill, assistant director of arts and culture, shared results of an online survey the city conducted about the proposal.
The city received 2,632 responses, according to his report. Of those, 1,776 respondents listed in their top 3 concerns about the proposal the cost for low-income families; 1,627 said the cost for seniors and people living on fixed incomes; and 1,071 said the cost for youth.
Another concern people raised, Arneill said, was that the city is “going back on a promise” by not keeping Sports Pavilion Lawrence fee-free, and that the city is eroding trust. Ruiz previously told the advisory board that promise was never codified.
One member of the public in attendance shared concerns that information such as the free admission hours for youths and how people can access qualified rates would get lost, and people wouldn’t know about it.
“That access for youth is extremely important, so that our kids can grow up being healthy,” he said.
Fees in other cities
The department has compiled a market comparison looking at costs of annual and household memberships in other cities. Individual annual memberships at rec centers that charge, for instance, range from $252 in Eudora to $600 in Olathe, according to the chart.
Here’s the comparison, via the city’s website (click here to open the PDF in a new tab):
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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