After months of back-and-forth, negotiations and uncertainty, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has hashed out a hodgepodge plan to keep some of its swimming pools open. But some school board members say the plan is inequitable and seemingly unsustainable.
This school year, the school district is working with community partners to keep five of its seven pools open without school funding.
“Currently we have no general funding going towards our swimming pools,” Superintendent Clayton Holland told board members last week, a few months into some of the new arrangements. “And each community has a different funding and operating model based on local circumstances or interest.”
In many cases, those models include higher admission and user costs than before, depending on the pool.
School board members defunded the pools earlier this year to save money – more than $1.5 million. Holland has said the Kenai Peninsula is the only school district in Alaska that runs its own swimming pools. In other communities, pools are often municipal facilities.
The pools at the K-12 school in Ninilchik and at Soldotna High School are closed and drained. Holland says the district got special permission from the Alaska School Activities Association to allow Soldotna High School’s swim team to compete with the team at Kenai Central High School.
Tim Daugharty represents Homer on the board. He says he’s not thrilled with the new operating plan.
“If indeed we are going to operate these pools, we have to make a more diligent effort to program them more efficiently,” he said.
Daugharty also took issue with some of the user fees. For instance, the new fee schedule requires students at Kenai, Skyview and Homer to help pay for pool access if their physical education classes involve swimming. Per semester, students must pay $25 if swimming once per week, $35 if swimming twice per week or $45 if swimming three times per week.
“I don't think we should be dinging our kids and punishing them again for actually trying to participate and learn how to swim,” he said.
Daugharty and Soldotna representative Penny Vadla were the only board members to vote against the new fees.
But students in Seward and Seldovia are not charged for physical education classes that use the pool. Holland, the superintendent, says that was a condition of the agreements the district reached with those communities. The new fee structures also outline costs for the general public for lap swim, pool rentals, punch cards and swim lessons.
Mica VanBuskirk represents the eastern peninsula. She is skeptical the current funding model is sufficient to cover pools’ costs.
“I'm really worried about the sustainability of this, and I'd love to maybe help find a way to come up with agreements in these other communities so we can keep their pools open, also long-term,” she said.
Site-by-site financial data show that none of the remaining pool facilities have raised enough money to pay for their estimated yearly costs, although that data only covers the first two months of the fiscal year.
Holland says the revenue estimate includes income from user fees and donations. Pools’ expenses include the facility manager’s salary and benefits, lifeguard training and certification, pool chemicals and supplies. Some cities have chipped in money to keep their local pool open, but district officials say they’re still figuring out how to prorate those contributions for facility operations.
Pool utilities are not separately metered from school utilities overall.
Holland says the district expects pool costs will be covered through the end of this school year. But board members had little discussion about a long-term solution.
