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Community Corner

New Field Use Method May Increase Revenue

Park District Looking at Rental Model for Affiliate Sports Groups

The Board of Commissioners found Thursday that devising a new model for how certain sports groups use park district fields might lead to unintended consequences—increased revenue from field usage.

Raising fees for so-called affiliate groups, including Downers Grove Roadrunners Soccer Club, Downers Grove Youth Baseball, D.O.L.L.S Softball and Downers Grove Junior Panther Football, wasn't one of the goals of the park district's staff's work to revise the park district's agreements with these groups. The main purpose of the months-long effort was to create a better method for allocating field usage after park staff was bombarded with complaints from other organized sports groups that wanted access to Downers Grove parks.

Thursday, park district staff presented a few possible models for working with affiliate groups that would replace the current model—charging groups a per-player fee—with an hourly rental fee. Affiliate groups would get a 75 percent discount off field rental rates and an additional 15 percent discount on all field rentals if various deadlines for submitting insurance and schedule information are met.

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A rental model, said Director of Recreation Sandy Pfundheller, would “hold everyone accountable for what they want to use.”

Staff then estimated what sports groups would pay the park district under this new fee structure based on field use statistics from 2010. The resulting increases ranged from $12,000 to $27,000. Commissioners pointed out that this wasn't what they intended to do but were simply the resulting numbers when applied consistently across the board. In 2010, the park district took in $63,000 from affiliate groups.

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“If we're going to to after more money, we need to state a reason for it,” said Board President Bob Gelwicks.

“The goal,” Commissioner Matt Cushing reminded everyone, “is field scheduling efficiency.”

Commissioner Janet Barr wanted to see any increases in fees come from travel teams. She proposed only a 60 percent field-rental discount for traveling teams, as she believed they brought more nonresidents to Downers Grove fields. But other commissioners disagreed with this approach. They asked staff to research how this discount would be implemented.

In August, staff presented round one of their , which included holding back five percent or about 700 hours from affiliate groups during their pre-season planning to give non-affiliate groups more access. After a certain date, those hours would be re-opened to the affiliates.

Bob Romay with the Downers Grove Fury baseball team told the board that he believed the five percent holdback would be “more than sufficient.”

Park district staff will meet with affiliate groups to outline the proposed fee structure.

“This is an excellent first start,” Barr told staff. “This is such a complicated subject.”

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