City To Consider Impact Of Waived User Fees

BROOKSVILLE - Children and their families will fill the Jerome Brown Community Center and nearby Tom Varn Park on April 19.

Paint will be dabbed on small faces and little bodies will bounce in the ever-popular inflatable moonwalk while parents learn about early childhood education services.

The City of Brooksville helps make the Week of the Young Child Festival possible each year by waiving the fees to use the center and park at the request of the nonprofit Childhood Development Services, Inc., which puts on the festival.

The City Council did so again this year, putting aside the $495 charge.

It's one of more than a dozen such requests that the council deems worthy of support each year. Its granting is almost always routine, followed by gracious thanks from the organizers.

But as government coffers are increasingly constrained by property tax reform and a slumping real estate market, city officials say they may have to start making difficult decisions and replying to such requests with what has historically been a rare word: No.

The City Council asked City Manager Jennene Norman-Vacha to come up with a tally of fees the city has waived in recent months. The information, council members said, would help the city come up with a fair, consistent policy.

The goal, Council member Joe Bernardini said, is to continue to help nonprofit groups that serve the community but also to find out how to bring in at least some dollars to go toward the cost of paying staff to set up, remain on hand during the event and clean up afterward.

"In these times, we have to know where the money's going," said Bernardini, who asked for the tally. "It adds up."

"It's a tough situation," Mayor David Pugh Jr. said. "There's a fine balance between those two issues of revenue and social responsibility."

Parks departments throughout Florida could be especially hard hit in upcoming budget talks because they come behind such essential needs such as the police and fire rescue service.

Norman-Vacha has already completed some tallying and plans to present information at the council's next meeting slated for March 3.

For the 2006-07 fiscal year, the city charged $22,138 in fees for use of the Jerome Brown Community Center and-or Tom Varn Park.

Of that amount, the city waived $6,176, or nearly 28 percent.

So far in this fiscal year, the city has waived $1,779 of $7,963 in fees.

The city typically waives fees for events it co-sponsors, such as the Brooksville Blazin' Butts & Brisket Barbecue Contest, and also waives charges for a handful of Hernando County government and school district events.

Several more nonprofit groups that could be eligible don't request waivers.

Norman-Vacha said many other events that did enjoy waived fees are usually geared toward children or providing general services to the community, such as the Brooksville Kiwanis Club Kids Day and the NAACP's Community Health Fair.

Norman-Vacha said the council could consider creating another fee tier expressly for non-profit groups.

County has already gotten tougher

The county has "cut back tremendously" in the last year or so on the amount of waived fee requests, Parks and Recreation Director Pat Fagan said.

Fagan has the authority to waive up to $300 in fees for use of parks facilities if he judges the event to be a benefit to the community, though the county commission still gets the final say.

The county commission asked Fagan and his staff to be "very careful" when considering the requests.

Now, Fagan said, "Staff generally tells the public that we do not waive fees."

"We need to make sure we offset costs," he said, citing the expected drop in general fund revenue.

The commission approved four larger waivers last year totaling nearly $16,000, but the bulk of that - just more than $13,000 - was a year's worth of rent for the Youth Recovery Services program operating out of the Lorenzo Hamilton Building at Kennedy Park.

The commission also approved various, smaller waivers for school district functions. In the end, the school's programs "do more for us than we do for them," said Fagan, who is also a school board member.

Fagan echoed other officials, however, when he said the groups that often benefit from waived fees are providing key services that government cannot or will not provide, often on shoestring budgets of their own.

"It's tricky," County Commissioner Dave Russell acknowledged.

Russell said some events are obvious for waived fees, such as the recent Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony at Kennedy Park. The event was among the four approved in the last year.

Other events, put on by groups that charge dues, might be more likely to get denied, he said.

Nonprofit groups are listening to this ongoing conversation with trepidation.

"It is a little scary, because we do rely on a lot of community support," said Sheila Chambers, an early learning curriculum specialist for Childhood Development Services, Inc. who also plans the Week of the Young Child Festival. "We're doing this for the children and families in the community, not to make our agency shine more than others."

Such in-kind donations are key to the organization's success, Chambers said. The group already works hard to bring in donations from local businesses to put on the festival, and the nearly $500 saved in park user fees helps make the annual event that much better.

Otherwise, she said, "We're just going to have to work harder."