Lawrence city commissioners considered reinstating free senior swim on Wednesdays at the Indoor Aquatic Center, but they chose to hold off until they have more data about rec center usage following fee implementation.

The weekly Free Senior Swim Day started around 2013 to encourage people ages 60 and older to stay physically active by allowing them to use all areas of the aquatic facility during operation hours, according to an agenda item report for the Feb. 3 city commission meeting.

Both aquatic centers charged daily rates and for memberships prior to this year, but free senior swim ceased Jan. 1 when the city implemented membership fees at the recreation centers for the first time.

City staff members did not discuss the cessation of free senior swim in commission meetings prior to Jan. 1.

Lindsay Hart, interim director of the Parks, Recreation and Culture department, wrote in the report that staff members informed patrons via signage around the facility posted in early November 2025, and that staff spoke with many of the affected patrons in November and December. She said they were generally disappointed, but only a few were concerned about affordability, “generally on behalf of others rather than themselves.”

She said staff chose to eliminate the program to “standardized fees across all recreation facilities.”

“The decision was made to ensure a more consistent and equitable approach to access across the entire recreation system,” Hart wrote. “Aligning aquatics with the same fee structure used at recreation centers helps maintain fairness for all users and supports the long-term sustainability of our facilities. Offering a free senior swim day at the pool would create an expectation for similar free options at other recreation facilities, which would be difficult to sustain systemwide.”

During Tuesday’s commission meeting, Vice Mayor Mike Courtney raised concerns about rec center access for veterans and non-veterans with disabilities, people who need one-on-one attending care and 18-year-olds who are still in high school.

He also advocated for bringing free senior swim on Wednesdays back, saying he had already received emails from around six concerned seniors who had previously taken advantage of the fee-waived day.

Courtney said a woman from the Barker neighborhood told him that pool exercise helps seniors with mobility issues, and water is gentler on joint pain than other exercises. Courtney said she makes just enough income that she doesn’t qualify for scholarships, so she has to decide whether to spend her money on food, gas, prescription medications or swimming.

“‘Though I’ve been doing some exercise, I am feeling the stiffness rearing up from my body from not swimming. Poverty is not fun,’” Courtney said, reading from her message during the Feb. 3 commission meeting.

He said another woman who reached out was on a fixed Social Security income and faced the same issue of choosing between gas and groceries or swimming.

Steven Watts is a Lawrence resident from the Oread/University Place neighborhood. Although he did not avail himself of free senior swim days, he was concerned to hear that the program was cut without public discussion.

“It is not ‘free’ and never has been!” he wrote via email. “It was and is already paid for via tax dollars. Government is not business. Government is about the business of providing service.”

Looking at data from the first three weeks of January 2025 and January 2026, staff found a 50% decline in senior swimmers on Wednesdays following fee implementation, per the Feb. 3 report. Wednesdays of the first three weeks of January 2025 averaged 60 senior participants, and 2026 averaged 30.

The city’s projections estimate $15,288 in additional revenue for the full year after eliminating senior swim. The first three weeks of January yielded an added $600.

On Tuesday, Hart said total attendance across all ages showed an 8.26% increase between all four Wednesdays in January 2026 and January 2025, to 557 from 511. She said she thought some of the seniors who previously attended the free swim day opted to purchase a monthly or annual pass.

Courtney asked why they could not open the facilities for seniors to swim for free once a week if the number of impacted people is relatively small.

Seniors get reduced rates for annual and monthly aquatic memberships, as well as reduced daily rates and punch card costs. However, Hart said that many seniors don’t qualify for scholarships because they’re based on income, not age.

“But we’re happy to have all those discussions with them, but we need to be consistent across the board with all of our community because other people in other programs have the same concerns,” Hart said. “So we’re just trying to be consistent across the board now that we have begun charging the rec center fees, which is where this change was initiated.”

Commissioner Mike Dever opposed reinstating senior swim based on one month’s worth of data.

He said he thought it would be unwise to have senior passes refunded, seeing as that population makes up a significant number of Sports Pavilion Lawrence memberships at this point.

“They’re getting the most benefit out of it,” he said. “They have the most free time, and they have the most — technically speaking, the most money available to them to spend of all of us in Lawrence at this point in time.

“That demographic, technically speaking, has that flexible income,” Dever continued. “So if there are people that are left outside, we have the means to help them through scholarship, and if they truly do have a financial problem, then we have the means to help them already. We don’t need to change the rules.”

Mayor Brad Finkeldei asked if they would need to refund seniors who have already purchased a membership if they reinstated free senior swim.

“I don’t know how we’d handle that, to your point, but I mean, we’d be willing to work with seniors if they had bought an annual or monthly pass and came back to us and explained why,” Hart said. 

Commissioners and Hart resolved to get more verbal feedback from seniors using the facilities and to return to the discussion with more data.

Hart also presented further data on rec center memberships and revenues during the commission’s Tuesday meeting. Read more about that in this article.

Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.

Read their complete bio here. Read their work for the Times here.

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