St. Louis County Executive Sam Page has announced that the county is raising park and recreation fees as part of an effort to address budget shortfalls in county government. This is after the county announced a reduction in recreation facility hours a while back (among other cuts) in response to the same budget issues.
The increase in fees is a good move by St. Louis County government. According to the article:
Page . . . [said] the changes stem from a comprehensive review of the actual cost of providing services and reflect “operational realities, market standards, and equity considerations.”
The most important part there is “operational realities.” (I’ll let you guess which one I think is the least important.) I covered this topic in my most recent paper in the free-market municipality series. The operating costs of recreational facilities should be funded to the largest extent possible by user fees. (Capital costs are generally funded through bonds paid back by taxes.) It may not be possible to get 100% of funding with user fees, but fees should consistently be updated to ensure that they cover as much of costs as they can.
One increase that the county announced is that ice rink rentals are increasing to $300 per hour. Building, managing, and maintaining an ice rink is very expensive, and it is not something that most of the general public often uses. The hockey teams that rent it out should pay the cost of the service, not the general public. The same reasoning applies to regular ice skaters during open ice time. The fee for a ticket and skate rental should cover the costs.
Parks are different. Nobody wants to pay a fee to take a walk in a park. That is why general taxes are the best way to pay for community parks. (Many national parks and some state parks are more “destination” type facilities where user fees should be and are a part of the funding.)
St. Louis County is doing the right thing here. I hope other cities and counties also stay on top of the fee structures to make sure their recreational facilities are capturing the right amount of money in user fees.
