Seeking insight into the true membership numbers and financials of private organizations that run youth sports in New Canaan, town officials plan next year to make mandatory a $20 per-player “fields usage” fee.
Led by Park & Recreation Commission Chair Sally Campbell and Selectman Nick Williams and launched through the Youth Sports Committee, the move is designed, in part, to usher New Canaan toward a system where basic upkeep of playing fields is accounted for through above-the-line payments rather than private contributions.
In the past, the town had no oversight of the financials of groups that oversee sports such as youth football, lacrosse, baseball, soccer and field hockey, Campbell said during the committee’s Jan. 29 meeting.
As a result, she said, “we had groups that ended up having big cash reserves because they were collecting fees way in excess of what they needed to use.”
“So our point to them was, look, you know parents aren’t going to question the fee—because they want their kid to participate, they want them to make the A team and nobody would question it,” Campbell said at the meeting, held in the Art Room at Lapham Community Center. “And we all said to them, ‘Look, just show us a breakdown of fees that sort of represent what the costs are. And you can reserve part of it—we know you need an operating reserve—but let’s get the reserves down.’ So that is what financial statements show.”
In the past, officials say, the $20 per-person fee had been requested by the committee as a donation, and while groups such as lacrosse paid it outright, some others rather funded work on the fields by writing a check to a “Special Projects Fund.”
Williams has urged the town to institute a mandatory per-player fee across all youth sports, boy and girls alike, in part to avoid preferential treatment in playing time on public fields.
Campbell at the Jan. 29 meeting proposed a new system where each youth sports group, having collected the $20 as part of its charge to parents, would do some simple math before each season—multiplying total membership by $20—then write a check in that amount to the ‘Town of New Canaan.’
The money, to be collected May 1 (before the spring sports season), Aug. 1 (summer) and Oct. 1 (fall), would be earmarked within the General Fund and then made available to the parks department for its fields work the following year, she said.
Though the change technically would need to come up from the Youth Sports Committee and then go through the Park & Recreation Commission and Board of Selectmen, Campbell said, it appears to be a foregone conclusion.
As committee member Ben Sibbett said: “The town seems to be asking us to rubber stamp what they want to do.”
In an exchange with Campbell, after hearing a summary of her proposal, Sibbett said: “It seems like they [the Board of Selectmen] already decided that this is what they want to do.”
Campbell answered: “Right, but we still have to go through the proper channels.”
Williams has been an outspoken critic of Special Projects Funds, saying the town should identify basic municipal responsibilities such as fields or playgrounds upkeep and upgrades, and not leave it to private citizens to fund them.
One such Special Projects Account—for fields maintenance—saw $65,455 in revenue collected in the past year, mainly through fees from the sports groups—according to a Jan. 9 letter from Town Attorney Ira Bloom, responding to Williams’ request for an opinion on the system.
Bloom said the town should “reclassify” the fund, “and probably several others,” so that it “conforms to the regular budgetary process.”
“All fees collected by the Park and Recreation Department from youth groups should be deposited only into the town’s General Fund,” Bloom said.
Recreation Director Steve Benko urged the committee to preserve Special Projects Funds for specific projects that generous donors want to support–such as goalposts.
Selectman Beth Jones, a guest at the meeting who holds a different view from Williams on the practice, said: “I think there are people who will not contribute if they think it [their money] is going into the General Fund, and roll the dice that they are going to get what they want out of it. So I am not sure why Ira thinks it is so crucial to get rid of so many of our special funds.”
Committee members also questioned whether the privately funded youth sports groups alone would need to pay the mandatory $20 per-player fee, or if it would extend to other groups—such as Rec softball or even high school athletes.
Parks officials said they received assurances from the town’s finance department that monies coming into the General Fund from a fields usage fee would go out again to support fields maintenance.
Because the end of the budget season dovetails with one major season for fields work (the spring), officials said, funds gathered one year would need to support fields maintenance for the following spring—meaning the youth sports groups would need to write a check to the town based on estimates that factor in program growth.
Not really seeing the true purpose of the $20 fee. Is it one of control or to truly to fund the annual field maintenance costs? If the latter the fee would seem to fall far short.
Let’s say that the average number of participants in the main youth sports run around 300. That would add up to a meager contribution of $6000 annually per sport. In total the overall “take” would not even come close to being able to fund a major capital project such as “turfing” a field or putting in new lighting. Would these funds still come from private donations or would the town take over the funding of such projects?
In the interest of full disclosure it would be interesting for Youth Sports Committee to explain how recent major projects such as the turfing and lighting of Waveny Fields came about. How much did they cost and what groups were involved in the funding?