District may increase fees for sports field use

COEUR d'ALENE - School officials in Coeur d'Alene are considering whether they should increase the price that outside groups are now paying to use the district's sports fields.

"My goal in all this is to ensure that we are being responsible stewards of the taxpayer's money, that we are not either charging too much or charging too little," said Superintendent Matt Handelman.

Wendell Wardell, the district's chief operations officer, told trustees Monday during their regular monthly meeting that the current athletic field rental fee of $3.75 for up to four hours of use is significantly less than the cost to maintain the fields.

Wardell said the district's field-use fees have not been updated "for some time," but costs have gone up.

"If you look at it, we're hemorrhaging money, especially with our outside fields," Wardell said.

The school district maintains 133 acres of fields, and the total cost to maintain those fields annually is $386,000.

Wardell said 70 percent of the field maintenance costs can be attributed to use by outside community groups.

"If we were further along with our fields, it would literally translate back to programs that the board wants to do because the money would come in to help our maintenance funds," Wardell said.

In contrast to the Coeur d'Alene School District's low field-use fee, the cost to rent athletic fields in the Central Valley School District, just across the state line, ranges from an hourly charge of $23 during the week to $34.50 on Saturdays and $57.50 on Sundays.

North Idaho College charges $25-$100 per hour for use of its field, with the cost based on the nature of each request.

The Post Falls School District does not schedule field rentals. In that district, it's handled by the city's department of parks and recreation, Wardell said, and the school district receives 50 percent of the revenue generated from its field rentals.

Wardell presented a draft proposal that would increase Coeur d'Alene's field rental fee to $25 per hour, although he made it clear that it would be up to the board to decide whether to raise the rental fee at all.

Trustee Tom Hamilton said he has received some "emotional" emails about the issue. He said he would like more information about the financial impact that upping the fee would have on parents who pay for their children to participate in these club sports.

Christa Hazel, vice-chair of the school board, said she has received emails from parents also.

"What I'm hearing from them is that they're willing to cover their costs, whether it be financially or through in-kind donations," Hazel said.

She said her main concern is that parents whose children play for these organizations are already paying fees to those groups that are supposed to cover the costs of the program. Because they're taxpayers also, these parents may feel that they're paying for the field maintenance more than once.

"There's also another group of taxpayers that will say, 'Wait a minute, we don't want to underwrite these programs,'" Wardell said, after reminding the trustees that they could decide to leave the fee structure as is.

Trustee Dave Eubanks said he's concerned that by raising the fees, indigent children who often receive scholarships from these youth athletics organizations, will have less opportunities to play sports.

Robert Fitzgerald, president of CDA Junior Tackle, a nonprofit football league, said his group is not subsidized by the school district, and serves 705 players with 100 coaches.

"No kid is turned away from Junior Tackle...We're not a select group like Sting (soccer)," Fitzgerald said.

He said that kids who can't afford to play receive scholarships, and many of the Junior Tackle players would never make it onto a select team.

"We have coaches that go into the meth house...they go around the deadbeat dad and get that kid to and from the games," he said.

If the field rental fees jump to $25 per hour, Fitzgerald said Junior Tackle won't survive.

"It's simple economics. It's not emotional," he said.

Tony Norris, president of the nonprofit Sting soccer club, said his group is the third-largest of its kind in Idaho, and has been a "mainstay" in the Coeur d'Alene School District for 30 years.

Through the years, he said, they have made many in-kind donations of labor, provided goals, nets and more for the school district fields.

"I talk to other clubs all the time, and we are fortunate," Norris said.

He said if the rental fees are raised, the club is willing to work with the district to find a solution that works for everyone.

Wardell recommended that the trustees hold a public workshop and invite the various sports organizations and other interested stakeholders to present written comments prior to the workshop.

The trustees agreed, and set the date for May 19.

The time and location of the workshop have not yet been determined.