Revenue for the West Shore Recreation Commission are down about 20 percent from what they budgeted. In the past few years, fees have gone up for various activities, and I suspect they've learned a bit about the elasticity of activity prices, because they don't appear to think they can go back to that well this time...
The West Shore Recreation Commission is bringing in about 20 percent less revenue than expected this year, which means municipal members may be asked to contribute more money, officials said."Our revenues are down this year because of the economy. People are cutting back," commission executive director Carmen Williams said on Friday. "We just had fewer adults participating in summer activities," starting when gasoline jumped to $4 a gallon.
Participation in youth programs has remained steady, she said.
In response to the reduced revenue, the commission laid off one of its five full-time staff members and has cut expenses, Williams said. "I don't know what else we can cut without the organization disbanding. We already had a pretty frugal budget to begin with," she said.
The commission -- whose municipal members include the West Shore School District, Lemoyne, New Cumberland, Goldsboro, Lewisberry and Lower Allen, Fairview and Newberry townships -- offers about 600 fitness, hobby and recreational classes and activities a year, led by part-time instructors and independent contractors, Williams said.
The commission's budget this year is $566,000 and the board recently approved a 2009 budget of $531,000, Williams said. About 70 percent of the commission's revenue comes from participation fees, with member municipalities making up the rest.
The commission will meet on Oct. 14 to discuss the "unforeseen revenue shortfalls" and consider what to do about them, board president Doug Goodlander said. The options include fundraising activities and asking the member municipalities for more money, he said.
Lemoyne Borough Council rejected additional funding for the commission at its meeting Thursday night.
I don't think they're going to have a lot of luck getting more money from local governments who are under a lot of budget pressure of their own. Fundraising is going to be difficult in this environment as well. I suspect that there's going to be an activity by activity audit to determine which programs over the past several years have been revenue losers, and those are going to get cut.