Bountiful says it's official. The city's indoor pool will open for one more season next summer and then close forever.
The City Council voted Wednesday on the issue. Officials have made noises for some time about how expensive it is to maintain the 32-year-old structure at 785 S. 100 East.Just keeping the indoor pool building heated to 50 degrees during the winter - to keep things from freezing - costs the city $1,000 per month, City Manager Tom Hardy said.
With the indoor pool closed, the city will have only one pool - "the bubble" - at 150 W. 600 North.
The action is one of various steps the council took Wednesday to make the recreation program, particularly the swimming program, more self-sufficient through user fees and less tax money.
Other actions included increasing general admission pool fees by 10 percent, increasing swimming lesson fees by $2 per child, increasing swim team fees by 30 percent, increasing softball team fees by $25, increasing ice-time rental fees by $5, increasing learn-to-skate class fees by $5 and eliminating the position of aquatics director by merging those responsibilities into other positions.
The various actions would save about $143,000 per year in the swimming program alone, said parks and recreation director Neal Jenkins.
Those savings will be offset to the tune of $68,000, making the net savings about $75,000, because the council voted to increase the wages of part-time recreation workers such as swimming instructors, Junior Jazz coaches and ice arena workers.
The wage increases, ranging from 12 to 20 percent depending on position, were prompted by the difficulty in getting good help to stick around. In the past, the city could get away with paying part-time workers relatively little because there weren't a lot of jobs around, but now, with help-wanted signs posted all over town, the city has to woo its employees.
"The day when young people would work for minimum wage and be glad for the job is gone," Jenkins said.
The wage increases in parks and recreation departments other than the pools will be substantially offset by fee increases.
The city parks and recreation department handles parks, golf course, cemetery, swimming pools, ice arena and recreation outside the recreation center such as Junior Jazz and baseball. The golf course and cemetery pay their own way with user fees and other income, and the ice arena comes close. The parks have no user fees and are thus completely supported by tax money, and the pools and recreation programs are subsidized.
The pools' subsidies have ranged from $105,000 to $174,000 in the past five years.