MEEKER | The Eastern Rio Blanco Metropolitan Recreation and Park District (ERBM) board met twice in June to discuss cost recovery, finances and the Circle Park fishing pond.
POND PROBLEMS
For Circle Park, board members approved additional funds to “finish out the project in the right way.”
Due to an algae bloom in the pond, ERBM has contracted up to $5,397 for herbicide applications to deal with the problem. On June 21, the board also approved $8,397 for the installation of a new aeration system in the pond.
Maintenance Manager Rodney Gerloff said he felt the aeration system could reduce the amount of herbicides applied to the pond in the long term, along with improving the pond’s visual appeal and fish habitat. Gerloff also requested $2,500 for aerial/spatial mapping of the pond to be used as a future measurement tool for determining the rate of sedimentation in the pond, but the board “wasn’t sold” on the necessity of the expense.
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
The board discussed employee benefit packages at length last week, focusing on the subject of paid time off, and how much employees are allowed to accrue. During the discussions, exempt salaried employees expressed frustration over being unable to take vacations using paid time off due to recent staff cuts and a hiring freeze. Following discussions, the board decided to continue with the existing paid policy which caps accrual of PTO hours at 200, a number which Executive Director Sean VonRoenn said was based on market study. He also pointed out that despite full time exempt employees having trouble using paid leave benefits, the district has never paid out more than 12-16 hours on a single employee.
In an earlier meeting this month, the board also voted to cut an employee cell phone reimbursement stipend in half, from $100 to $50 per month.
COST RECOVERY
ERBM staff have been working for the last two years on cost recovery measures to improve the revenue-to-expense ratio of various programs and services offered by the district. VonRoenn explained that efforts will help in understanding the full cost of doing business by:
- distinguishing between direct v. indirect expenses
- determining to what extent individual programs are “subsidized” or “cost recovered”
- modernizing/updating service categories to be more specific
As a result of pushing to recover more costs, the district will be transitioning to new fee schedules for certain programs, and re-evaluating fees and program viability on a regular basis. Additional cost recovery is also achieved as a result of analyzing and reorganizing service categories, and identifying which programs generate more indirect costs. For the most part, ERBM staff’s cost recovery work shows that most existing programs are recovering costs at the desired level.
By LUCAS TURNER | [email protected]om
