The South Suburban Parks and Recreation District’s 2014 budget continues where the last one left off with more maintenance of what the district has and not too many big capital improvement projects.
The proposed budget, released to the board last week, sees $52 million in expenditures with $49 million in revenue and $3 million as a carryover from last year. Steve Shipley, finance director for South Suburban, said the greater number of expenditures also includes $6 million in contingency funds.
“Of the $52 million in expenditures, some of that includes a contingency fund, so we don’t really intend to spend that, but we have that if a boiler goes out or some type of emergency,” Shipley said. “We need a fairly good contingency because our facilities are aging and we could replace a boiler at one facility and then it goes out at another facility.”
Some of the district’s facilities are 40-50 years old.
Next year’s expenditures also include upgrading old irrigation systems in parks and replacing outdated heating and air conditioning units in some facilities. Shipley said while the district is seeing a 4.1 percent increase in revenues from assessed valuations, the district staff still has a $4.6 million laundry list of unfunded priorities at parks, trails and facilities. He said the district’s basically been trying to catch up from decreased tax revenues since 2008.
“Once you fall behind, it’s kind of hard to catch up without a new revenue source,” Shipley said.
He said golf revenue was great in 2012, but this year the season started off with a lot of rain and “you really don’t pick those up.”
Proposed capital improvement projects that total about $3.5 million include a $200,000 replacement of irrigation systems at Arapahoe Park (with part of the funding covered by Centennial), $300,000 of a $3.2 million project of maintenance on the South Platte Trail, $500,000 on the South Platte River reclamation project, $290,000 on repair and replacements of golf carts at the district’s golf courses, a $75,000 refurbishment of the Walnut Hills Tennis Courts (costs shared with Centennial) and $45,000 for laying of asphalt for BMX tracks at Dave Lorenz Regional Park.
“These aren’t really flashy projects that the citizens are going to notice a difference, but it’s just to maintain our facilities,” Shipley said.
One project residents might notice is $312,000 for six new proposed pickleball courts at Cornerstone Park to meet the growing demand for the popular sport in the district. Shipley said the district would most likely go for Arapahoe County Open Space grants to pay for it.
Dave Lorenz, South Suburna executive director, said residents should see no difference or decrease in the quality of service they’re used to getting despite the unfunded needs.
“There’s always an unfunded-needs list, it’s just, this year, it’s longer than it has been in previous years as those needs grow, just to maintain what we have,” Lorenz said.
He said in the next two years the district should see a bump in revenue as tax assessments will be going up.
It’s also harder to maintain parks and trails, which bring in no revenue and take $1 million a year to water and maintain, but are used by 80 percent of residents in the district.
He said eventually the district will probably look at raising property taxes as needs increase.
The South Suburban Board of Directors will have a public hearing and vote on the budget in December.
This year, Lorenz said the district is looking for residents to join its citizens planning committee to help the district identify projects. For more information, e-mail Lorenz at davidl@sspr.org or call 303-798-5131.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2953, cwoullard@denverpost.com
