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Board discusses community use rules and possible fee changes as custodial staffing limits access
Summary
Administration proposed a tiered fee schedule for community users and flagged custodial staffing as the primary reason many requests are denied; trustees asked staff to return with fee recommendations and operational details.
The Lexington‑Richland School District Five administration brought a proposal April 7 to revise community‑use rules and a draft fee schedule for district facilities, but officials said the primary constraint to rentals is custodial staffing, not insurance premiums or hourly rates.
What administration proposed Chief Operations Officer Dr. Gerald Geerig said principals’ surveys show most community requests target gyms, stadiums and practice fields, and that roughly 60–80% of requests are denied because a custodian is unavailable or because the facility is already booked. The proposal would: require nonprofit groups to verify 501(c)(3) status; prohibit animals on district property except for official purposes; change administrative responsibility for the rule to the Office of Operations; and add user groups and priority tiers for scheduling (school‑based groups first, partner MOUs next, then youth programs and other outside users).
Dr. Geerig proposed lowering some hourly fees to improve affordability — for example, district elementary gyms from $75 to $50 per hour and middle/secondary gyms from $100 to $75 — and adding a seasonal fee for repeated use of outside commons (parking lots, fields) rather than charging each occurrence.
Operational constraint: custodial staffing Geerig and trustees repeatedly pointed to custodial staffing as the main barrier. Many custodians work near a full schedule and are nonexempt employees who qualify for overtime; administrators said the district’s payroll structure makes it hard to recruit custodians who will work occasional evening hours without overtime compensation. “We already can’t find somebody to get it,” Geerig said. The administration suggested several operational options to explore, including a longer minimum booking window so workers could be scheduled predictably and possible use of contracted staff (through ESS) though recruitment for intermittent work can be difficult.
Public comment and trustee concerns Community member and youth coach Matt Conklin urged the board to improve both affordability and access, saying community groups could secure practices and youth programming only intermittently and that some approvals were denied without an explanation. A second speaker, Kim Murphy, urged trustees to avoid a large tax increase and to hire an external auditor to seek waste, fraud and abuse before raising taxes; that comment tied into the board’s budget discussion earlier in the meeting.
Next steps: Geerig said the administration will return with recommended fee levels, a proposed minimum booking window, and operational options to expand availability (including seasonal fees and possible contracted staffing models) for the board’s first reading at a future meeting.
