Saratoga News

Photo by Robert Scheer

Michelle Perna gets her shoes tied by her mom, Marcy Perna of Saratoga in a dance class sponsored by the Saratoga Recreation Department.

Recreation department faces uncertainty with possible cuts

By Sarah Lombardo

It's not all fun and games at the Saratoga Recreation Department.

In the wake of news that the Finance Advisory Committee recommended abolishing the department to help balance the budget, officials from the department find themselves in an uncertain situation.

The recommendation was made to the City Council at a town hall budget meeting in mid-January, and since then, Recreation Department Director Joan Pisani said many people have been asking for answers.

"It's scaring people that we might be cutting our classes," Pisani said. "It's sending panic through the community."

Pisani said some people have been holding off on paying the department for classes they'd like to take for fear the department may be closed and the classes canceled.

The recommendation has also led to confusion regarding whether the department recovers its costs. At the first of two town hall budget meetings in January, Pisani told the council and residents that her department had 91 percent cost recovery. Pisani said expenditures from last year totaled $617,000, and revenue from fee-based programs equaled $590,000. The only non-recovered expenses were from staff time from things the City Council directed the department to provide, such as the Boneyard and the Youth Commission, Pisani said.

"You can't charge kids to be on the Youth Commission," she said.

But, Finance Advisory Committee members say their numbers show otherwise.

City Finance Director Thomas Fil said both camps are correct, based on which numbers they are looking at.

"They are talking about two different sets of numbers. Joan is talking about the amount of revenue compared with the direct costs of providing the programs, which don't include things like building maintenance. Then, she does have a point," Fil said. But, in their look at the budget, finance committee members took indirect costs into account as well, and therein lies the difference, Fil said.

"It's not that they disagree with the numbers," Fil said. "It's that they are using two different sets of numbers."

Fil said he wanted to stress that the finance committee was looking at all departments when advising the council where to make cuts, not targeting just the recreation department.

"The recreation department is not the subject of debate here. It's all the programs that are not full-cost recovery," Fil said.

Pisani said she did not feel that including indirect costs when looking at the budget was fair. "My point is that if they are going to close the recreation department, that most of the indirect overhead is not going to go away," Pisani said.

In addition, Pisani said, she felt the department provided a necessary service to the city by building teens' self-esteem, providing teens a place to go after school and offering quality classes.

"There's plenty of benefits to our programs," Pisani said.