A multi-year conversation and effort to make the Maplewood Community Pool more affordable for all township residents appears to be headed for a breakthrough, with elected officials saying they hope to lower fees by as much as 50% over the next few years — if the budget allows.
“This year in our health and community services meeting, we’ve had a lot of conversations around our current pool fees and how they make it unaffordable for some people to join our pool, and it’s called a community pool, and what kind of pool do we want to have here in Maplewood?” said Deputy Mayor Deborah Engel, who is a liaison to the pool committee.
Pool fees for the summer season have hovered near $500 for the average family in recent years. Recent efforts such as Pool Pals and Swim Lessons for All have sought to provide access — and life-saving swimming instruction — to lower-income residents.
Engel added, “Historically, our pool has been set up as a separate utility with a mandate that it should be self-sustainable, but it just feels like costs are rising and is that mandate even actually possible?”
Engel shared proposed policy language from TC member Vic De Luca: “For reasons of financial and climate equity beginning in 2024, the Township Committee will balance membership fees with an allocation of township funding to make the pool more accessible to all.”
De Luca explained, “The idea here is, as you said, to have a plan over the next few years to reduce the fee. And we’ve talked about some targeting of trying to reduce the fee about 50%.”
De Luca said that meeting that goal of a 50% reduction would depend on the overall township budget situation. “Part of that is we have a cap situation and that you can’t make a major infusion in one budget year because we have a limit of a 3.5% cap increase … . So during our budget process that begins in January, we will take a look at what is our cap space, what can we expand the budget by, what’s the amount. And then we’ll look at all the other needs that we have in town because we have salaries going up, we have other costs, utilities go up, and things like that.”
He noted that some of those other costs can go “outside the cap, some of those are in the cap. And then we’ll make a determination of what we have and we’ll make a proposal, a monetary proposal of how much we can allocate to the pool.”
De Luca reported that last year the TC allocated $25,000 to help families with pool fees, as well as providing other resources through the finance office and department of community services. “So there’s a lot of support that goes to the pool already from the town side. This is just a cleaner process.”
De Luca said that the TC would make a determination in February: “We’ll pass ordinance to set that fee so that pool memberships will be available in March.”
Despite the possible infusion of funding, the township will continue to keep the pool as a separate utility. “So this way money that comes in can stay in that pot,” said De Luca. “It doesn’t have to go to the general fund, but we will eliminate that self liquidation fund, self-support notion [that is] mandated. This way, we’ll be able to put money in and we’ll be able to open the pool to more people.”
“We hope that even in future years, because the increase in membership, that we’ll have additional fee revenue so that any allocation of tax money will either not go up as much or, if we have exploding membership, be able to maintain that level,” said De Luca.
“I think we’re all in agreement,” he added. “We’ve talked about this a long time, making the pool a more open pool and making it accessible to more folks in the community. And this is how we intend to do it.”
During a brief discussion, TC members indicated their unanimous support for moving forward with the initiative.
“I’m a yes,” said Mayor Dean Dafis.
“110%, my goodness,” said TC member Jamaine Cripe. “Please make the community pool for the community.”
