At the Nov. 24 meeting staff presented a sensitivity analysis modeling the impact of adding a per‑hour fee for field use on top of the existing per‑player seasonal charge.

Director Cindy (speaking as the director’s report presenter) said the department proposed retaining the per‑player seasonal fee (noted in materials as $15 per child per season) and adding an hourly charge to better capture field wear and maintenance costs. Staff tested rates at $5, $10, $15 and $20 per hour and used hours requested on permits — not observed hours of actual use — to estimate fiscal impact. The spreadsheet shown to commissioners used permit‑requested hours (the ‘‘yellow line’’ in the document) and included example outputs that ranged widely depending on rate and hours requested, with modeled group impacts reported in the materials from about $560 on the low end to roughly $232,000 on the high end for an organization in the exercise.

Commissioners asked staff to provide spring and summer permit data (the fall figures understate typical seasonal use), more granular user counts (hours requested vs. people), and examples by organization so the commission can evaluate distributional impacts across small and large user groups. Staff agreed to pull additional data and indicated they would report back, and commissioners flagged concern about indirectly penalizing groups that historically request more permit hours but may not use all of them.

No fee change was adopted at the meeting; the item remains under study and will be revisited after staff presents fuller seasonal data and usage validation.