Board reviews alternative cost-recovery approach for parks and recreation venues

Staff presented Phase 3 of the district's parks and recreation cost-recovery work, outlining three ways to evaluate financial performance for venues including the golf course, Winter Sports Park and the Lake Forest campground. Sean, a parks and recreation staff member, told the board the alternative methodology separates district and department overhead from direct expenses and applies a 20% parks-and-rec allocation to better estimate operating costs for individually run venues.

The alternative view is intended for policy decisions such as pricing and fee-setting, not to replace the district's accounting allocations, Sean said. "We are not including capital in this cost recovery modeling," he told the board, noting the approach is intended to give a clearer picture of operating costs that staff and policymakers can use when setting fees. Andrew, the accounting staff member, walked directors through how the district currently spreads parks overhead and general-and-admin (G&A) allocations and why the alternative method may better reflect “total estimated operating expenses.”

Directors asked for clearer labeling and a single metric the board should use as its policy gauge. Staff said they plan a shorter wrap-up presentation in April that will refine labels, add a property-tax contribution line below the cost-recovery measures and recommend one of the three bottom-line numbers as the policy metric. The board expressed general support for using the alternative methodology as a working basis while staff fine-tunes the calculations and presentation.