School pools from Seward to Seldovia will shut down this summer after being defunded by Kenai Peninsula school board members. Swimming pools were among the first cuts as the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District forecast a multi-million dollar deficit for the fiscal year that starts in July.
The school district, the Kenai Peninsula Borough and Soldotna’s competitive swim team all had a seat at the table at a Soldotna City Council work session last week. Mayor Paul Whitney set the stage.
“We are here today to listen to what options may be available to ensure the pool remains open and to see whether the City of Soldotna fits into any of those options or decisions,” he said.
There are two pools in the Soldotna area – one at Soldotna High School and another at Skyview Middle School. But only SoHi’s is within the city limits.
Although nearly all of the Kenai Peninsula’s community pools are hosted at schools, Kevin Lyon says students are far from the only ones swimming. He’s the district’s director of planning and operations, and is in charge of district pools.
“Pools, primarily, if we look at the use, and we track all that usage, are contributing more to the community than to our students,” he said. “Students use it a little bit, but the community uses it in a much higher volume.”
That’s why the district has inched toward defunding pools in recent years, and shifting operations to non-school groups. But it’s not clear what that would look like. District Superintendent Clayton Holland says the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is the only district in Alaska that funds its own swimming pools.
As a second-class borough, the Kenai Peninsula Borough doesn’t inherently have recreation powers. But that can change with a vote of residents. In Nikiski, for example, property taxes collected from residents in a recreation service area subsidize the pool at the North Peninsula Recreation Center.
But there’s no guarantee that model would work in other communities. Last year, 68.7% of Ninilchik voters killed a ballot proposal to create a service area to help keep their school pool open. Borough Mayor Peter Micciche says that’s something Soldotna should keep in mind if it opts to put a question before voters.
“If you run one and it fails, you’re kind of boxed into that decision, like Ninilchik,” he said.
Although the school district operates its pools, the Kenai Peninsula Borough owns them — and all other district facilities. Micciche says that’s partly why the district is letting him take charge of next steps for pools. He doesn’t think those next steps include a boroughwide service area, which he said would be an “endless open door of new services.”
“What we’re asking is, ‘Who’s interested? Who wants to talk about a serious conversation?’” Micciche said. “We can lay out the models that are available. Once the group for that particular pool comes up with something, we’re going to present it to the superintendent for his folks to decide whether or not they're interested.”
Micciche is encouraging creative solutions to the pool problem, with an emphasis on finding the best fit for each community. That could look like a one-year pilot program to figure out what does and doesn’t work, he said.
Council member Jordan Chilson doesn’t think Soldotna should be discouraged by last year’s service area vote. He swims recreationally, but says that changed as the pool’s hours of operation reduced.
“I don’t feel it’s fair for the borough to use Ninilchik as the sole litmus test as whether or not to advance a recreational service area,” he said. “So again, in the absence of support from borough administration, I would really love to see some community groups step up and pursue that.”
In Soldotna, that’s where Maureen Todd comes in. She’s a teacher with the school district, but spoke to the council as a member and representative of the Soldotna Silver Salmon Swim Team, which serves swimmers of all ages and abilities. The group has ideas for making the pool profitable, and says Soldotna has a vibrant enough base of swimmers to keep the pool active.
“There's lots of opportunities to make our schedule more robust, to have more offerings, to generate more revenue, because I know money is the factor here,” he said.
Nothing concrete came from last week’s meeting. But council member Chera Wackler says it’s good to get the ball rolling.
“It’s still a lot of question marks, but at least there’s an ask, or at least a starting of an ask for a framework,” she said.
Currently, school district pools are funded through the end of the fiscal year, on June 30.
