Tag: REC Center

 

Source:  Oakmont REC Center, posted right next to the elevator.

Let me start with the simple fact, as shown in the picture above.  Fairfax REC Centers are self-supporting.  They require no ongoing taxpayer subsidy.

The proposal for Vienna’s one-third-scale REC Center, by contrast, assumed that operating cost subsidies would be required.  It seemed to imply that this was normal, and that nothing could be done about it.  That, consistent with ignoring the nearby REC Centers.

You may or may not be familiar with one or more of the three Vienna-area REC Centers.  This post has a broader focus than any one REC Center.

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Focus 1:  Do you need any more proof of economies of scale?

With the REC Centers, the lack of ongoing tax support is a bedrock principle.  User fees cover operating costs.

But the need for permanent taxpayer subsidy as assumed in the Vienna pool/gym proposal.  This, despite proposed user fees that are roughly the same as what Fairfax charges ($960 annual family membership for Vienna, versus $1050 for Fairfax.)

A moment’s thought will tell you that if the Vienna proposal could have claimed no need to subsidy, it would have.  That would surely have made it an easier “sell” all around.

Why can Fairfax count on the REC Centers to be self-sufficient, but Vienna can’t.  Compare:

• Vienna’s proposed facility, 25,000 square feet.
• Lee District REC Center ….. 86,000 square feet (reference).
• Cub Run REC Center ………, 94,000 square feet (reference).
• Audrey Moore REC Center, 83,000 square feet (reference).

The smallest REC Center for which I have found size data — Providence — is roughly twice the size of the planned Vienna facility.

As a Vienna resident, you may have been aware that there are three REC Centers nearby (Oakmont, Spring Hill, Providence).  You may have been vaguely aware that these are large facilities.

But you may not have been aware of the full context.  All of the Fairfax County REC Centers are large.  And they pay their own way with user fees.  But Vienna’s proposed facility is small.  And not even the people who’d like to sell us the plans for the building can credibly claim that it’s going to be self-supporting.

Connect the dots between that, and the relative size of the facilities, and 2014 Town Council Member Kelleher’s point regarding the inefficient scale of a Vienna facility.

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Focus 2:  A purposeful level of subsidy in the well-planned Fairfax County system

The second big difference between the planned Fairfax County system, and the one-off proposed Vienna facility, is that the lack of operating subsidy for the REC Centers is part of a larger recreational whole.  Fairfax didn’t randomly set out to make the REC Centers self-supporting.  That’s how REC Centers fit into the bigger picture, in Fairfax.

Fairfax REC Centers are just one point on a fairly intuitive “spectrum” of taxpayer subsidies, for a variety of recreational activities.  For Fairfax County-run entities:

• Golf courses cover operating cost, plus.
• REC Centers cover operating cost.
• Events held in the parks cover operating cost, minus.
• Parks (just parks, not “attractions”), are free.  They cover none of their costs.

At one end of the spectrum, expensive recreation, typically used by the well-off (golf), must pay its own way for both operating and capital expenses.  At the other end, taking a walk in a pleasant un-developed space has no associated user fee.

This purposeful spectrum of taxpayer subsidies in Fairfax is laid out in their recent study on equitable access to recreational activities in Fairfax.Fairfax County recently underwent some self-criticism for being too business-like in terms of limiting subsidies, and making many facilities inaccessible to the poor (I paraphrase, but that’s the common-sense gist of it the 2024 Fairfax equity study).

By contrast to Fairfax’s seemingly-thoughtful planning of subsidy level by type of activity, Vienna’s taxpayer subsidy level for the proposed pool/gym is … whatever it is.  It’s purely the residual of finances of this particular facility, no matter how they work out.

On the one hand, Fairfax County is the 600 pound gorilla in this market, and they have leeway that Vienna does not.  So in that sense, it’s unfair to point out the “randomness” of Vienna’s taxpayer subsidy for it’s (small-scale) rec center.

And yet, the more I look at the entire Fairfax system, they have made an effort to make it sensible, for want of a better term,  So, on the other hand, it’s undeniable that much of the Fairfax system has an innate logic to it, while Vienna’s does not.  Nobody even seems to be asking the question “what is the right, fair, just, or reasonable level of subsidy” so that Vienna can have a public indoor pool.

But on the other hand, “What’s the right subsidy for this proposed facility?” is not even on our radar screen.

 

Regarding the proposed Vienna pool/gym, why not ask people to buy a membership in advance, so we can get an accurate gauge of paying demand for this facility?  It’s not as if that’s a novel idea.

I’ve asked myself that, and I’ve heard others asking the same question.

The short answer is, Vienna can’t, because we’re broke.  Roughly speaking, all the money available for the Vienna capital fund is already spoken for, thanks mainly to the our very large 2020 bond issue.

So, even if we raise taxes now, assuming normal economic times ahead, we’d have to save the revenues for four years, first, just to be able to be able issue that new bond with the assurance that we have enough money around to make the payments on it.

The upshot is that if we wanted to have a “membership drive” to test the waters, before making a final decision on this facility, we’d be selling memberships in a pool that won’t open for another six years.

Judging demand by offering pre-orders is a standard way of doing business.  It would be particularly helpful here, because demand for the facility is the big unknown.    But, practically speaking, we can’t do it, because we’re basically broke, in terms of our capital budget.

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Extras for experts:  What happens if we don’t have normal economic times for the next four years?

Source: Some old Town of Vienna budget.  For some reason, the Town has taken all of its archive of budget documents off-line, so I can no longer go back and give an accurate citation as to source.  I first posted this chart in Post #547.  

The year 2008 saw our last significant economic downturn, a consequence of the collapse of the housing bubble, and the near-collapse of the banking system.  (There was a short, sharp recession during COVID, but thanks to the magic of every government in the civilized world showering money on their populations, that was over with in half a year.  Followed, with some lag, by a world-wide burst of inflation.  But no Great Depression.  I count that as a win.  So the short-but-sharp COVID turnaround doesn’t count as a “real” recession, in my book.)

While Vienna property values were stable during the 2008-2010 recession, meals tax revenue was not.  People ate out a lot less.  I guess.  And that resulted in the dip in Vienna’s meals tax revenue, circa 2008, shown above.  Oddly, it took close to a decade for the meals tax revenues to return to their 2008 level.  Why was that revenue number sticky?  No idea.

That meals tax money is how Vienna makes the payments on the bonds we have issued a.k.a. money we have borrowed.

With all the loose talk about mass firings of Federal employees, blanket tariffs on imports, plus the end of any COVID- or infrastucture-related stimulus money, I’d guess that some chance of a 2008-style dip in meals tax revenues will factor into Town Council’s final decision on this issue.  I heard a citizen voice that concern specifically with respect to our being part of the DC-area economy, at the mid-October Town Council hearing.

The upshot is that there’s a cost to maxing out your credit card.  You can’t make a major new purchase in a hurry.  And, all other things equal, I’d think your level of fiscal risk-aversion should increase, going forward.  And our meals tax revenue is known to fall in hard economic times, per 2008 above.  (And, somewhat oddly, stay down.)

This whole Vienna pool thing is a fraught decision.