During the Parks, Trails and Recreation Master Plan process, Shakopee Parks and Recreation Department recognized two issues that we’ve been working to resolve.  The first issue was the city's scheduling and maintenance spaces that are not city property.  The second issue was the $17 fee participant fee for associations, which is below the national average of $50 and has not been linked to a particular cost recovery strategy or used to cover any specific expenses.

City staff collaborated with School District staff developing and implementing a plan that successfully transitioned responsibility for scheduling of district indoor facilities from city staff to district staff in April of 2020.  The School District published a fee schedule April 15, 2021 which was discussed at joint meetings with all youth sports associations and city staff.  Youth associations for indoor sports now pay the school district an hourly rate for use of their facilities (see attached Facility Fees).  No longer scheduling these school district facilities, the city stopped collecting the $17 fee for youth associations for indoor sports, which decreased city revenues by approximately $35,000.00 beginning in 2020. On April 27^th, 2020 the School District removed outdoor athletic fields/facilities from the published schedule to afford staff more time for analysis, discussion, and input on the scheduling and fees for outdoor spaces.

City staff estimate the annual cost of maintaining city outdoor athletic fields/facilities and some school district outdoor athletic spaces at approximately $278,000.00 annually, with approximately $30,500.00 of that from city staff maintaining school district outdoor athletic spaces.  Unlike indoor athletic spaces, outdoor athletic spaces are subject to unpredictable weather and access is not typically controlled by staff nor is it easily monitored.  All residents and visitors have access to most of the city’s outdoor athletic spaces whenever they’re not in use by youth associations, school sports, or city programs/events.

The city has continued collecting the $17 per participant fee from outdoor sports youth associations adding up to $42,636.00 for the 2021 season.  The users, participant numbers, paid fees, total hours used, the amount paid per hour, and the city cost per hour are listed here for 2021: 

Staff requests direction from the City Council and Mayor concerning the desired cost recovery strategy for outdoor athletic spaces maintained and/or scheduled by city staff.  1) Full-cost recovery would result in an increase in expenses for some youth associations by more than 12 times current cost for their use of outdoor spaces.  Staff has been told that any cost increase would have to be passed on directly as increased fees for resident youth users.  2) 65% cost recovery would still result in a significant cost increase for some youth sports associations of more than 8 times current cost for the use of outdoor spaces.  3) Adopting the school district proposed fee schedule for grass fields, would result in city cost recovery decreasing from $42,636.00 (at $17 per participant) to $9,656.80 (at $1.48 per hour) for the same number of user hours and at the same estimated cost of $278,000.00 to the city.  4) Another alternative would be to forego charges for outdoor spaces, if the staff costs of administering an hourly fee schedule and its impact on resident youth associations are not considered as beneficial as the potential cost recovery of a $278,000.00 maintenance expense.