It’s been another challenging year for the Naperville Park District as it continues to navigate the ever-changing pandemic landscape.
Centennial Beach had higher-than-expected season pass sales but fewer people went swimming; Springbrook and Naperbrook golf courses are on track to make 30% more than 2019 but reduced tee times for lack of employees; Fort Hill Activity Center income is expected to be about 65% less it was 2019 and with about 1,300 fewer members.
Still, it would appear the good will offset the bad, Director of Finance Sue Stanish said. She remains “carefully, guardedly optimistic” that while they expect to take in $1.6 million less than they did in 2019 — the last full year before the pandemic — they’ll also have spent $2.3 million less, she said.
In 2019, Naperville Park District reported $28.9 million in revenue and paid $27.3 million in expenses for things like employee salaries and benefits, operational costs and maintenance.
They knew going into 2021 that this would be a tough year, Stanish said, with many pandemic restrictions still in place at the outset and the unknown of how quickly things would rebound once they were lifted.
“We’re still in a rebuilding stage,” she said.
The revenue drop can be attributed to the less money coming in from recreation fees, interest income, sales and rentals, Stanish said. But they’re also spending less because they’ve used fewer part-time staff, reduced some contractual services and had less golf debt because of paid-off projects, she said.
Centennial Beach is one place where the numbers have topped what they were in 2019, Stanish said. Net income from the facility is expected to be about $240,000, quite a bit higher than the $202,000 earned in 2019.
But while memberships were up 12% over the three-year average, actual attendance was 5% less.
At the Naperville Park Board’s Aug. 26 meeting, officials said the decline is tied to fewer group outings to the park by day camps and other organizations.
“The beach has done really well, the golfing has done really well, a lot of the outdoor activities are doing really well,” Stanish said.
The number of golf rounds purchased through the end of July outpaced 2019 numbers by 30%, numbers show. Revenue from golf lessons and clinics looks to finish 25% higher than 2019. Nearly 1,100 people had registered for a golf clinic or lesson as Aug. 19, compared to about 800 in 2019.
“Golf surprised me in a good way. It continues to explode; it’s two years now,” Stanish said.
Still, those numbers would be even better if they could find enough people to staff the courses, Human Resources Director Katie Sepe said. Tee times have had to be pushed back because they don’t have enough employees to offer them, she said.
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One low point in the financial picture is the Fort Hill Activity Center, which is expected to bring in about $277,000 in net income by year’s end, compared to $866,000 in 2019. Memberships to Fort Hill are down about 1,300 compared to where they were in March 2020.
Fort Hill, like most indoor fitness centers, continues to climb back from the 2020 government-mandated shutdown, Stanish said. Some people are still uncomfortable about indoor activities and the rebounding COVID-19 cases are not helping, she said.
That said, the district has been working without some part-time staff. That will save about $480,000 over what they spent in 2019, but it also means full-time staff are filling in on some of those jobs or some part-time work is going undone, officials said.
“We’ve certainly had and still have busy people working for Naperville Park District,” Executive Director Ray McGury told the Park Board last week. “But they are burnt out … we cannot operate this way anymore.”
The park district isn’t planting as many trees “because we don’t have the staff to water them,” Sepe said. The trimming of park greens has been reduced because they don’t have enough people to do the work. The gymnastics programs are at risk because of understaffing, Sepe said.
“If we cannot recruit and retain additional gymnastics instructors, we won’t be able to accommodate our waitlists,” she said.
Part of the problem is the district is competing with other employers — landscapers, retailers, stores, and others — for the same pool of employees, Sepe said. They’ve had to bump up pay for some jobs, including preschool teachers, lifeguards and custodians, in order be more competitive, she said.
“Anytime a bigger employer makes announcements of increasing compensation, it creates a challenge for us,” Sepe said.