Riverside officials have not yet approved its 2009 budget, but cuts proposed in it are already being felt in the Department of Playgrounds and Recreation.
Next spring it means higher fees and less time on the practice field in 2009 and beyond for those wanting to play Little League baseball and softball in the village.
The recreation department has mandated that Little League will now pay the same rates being charged to other organizations who use village playing fields-$45 per use.
According to Riverside Little League President Cathy Gryczan’s reckoning, the new fee structure will cost Little League just over $30,000 a year. The recreation department pegs the figure at between $24,000 and $28,000. On average, the league has coughed up roughly $16,000 a year between field fees and donations for field upkeep.
In order to compensate for the budget changes, Gryczan confirmed last week that participation fees are being increased across the board in order to help cover a steep hike in field usage fees by the recreation department.
T-Ball registration is going up $10 per player while kids 9 and up will pay $20 more in 2009 to get on the field. Some 500 Riverside kids sign up for Little League each summer.
The increase in Little League’s registration fee won’t cover the whole difference, Gryczan said. In addition, Little League will cut down on the amount of field time it is seeking. Exactly how that will play out is not certain at this point, but Gryczan said that practices might begin later in spring and end earlier in July.
“We’ll have the same number of games,” Gryczan said, “but we won’t offer people the practice times we have before. The only thing we can control is how much we charge our players and how much we use the fields.”
Little League officials met with the village’s Playgrounds and Recreation Commission on Nov. 24 to see if the new field fee structure could be negotiated. The league offered a flat fee of $15,000 per year, but the recreation commission held firm.
“It’s really not possible because of the financial situation this department is in,” said Recreation Director Laure Kosey, who was not unsympathetic to the league’s complaint. “I get it; it’s tough to swallow.”
As a result of the hike in fees, Little League officials have said that their practice of donating money for field maintenance would cease. This year, for example the league donated over $18,000 for repairs to all five ball fields in the village.
Kosey said that field maintenance would be handled by both part-time recreation staff and by funds that the village board has earmarked over the next five years for field repair. On Nov. 8, during a discussion of the village’s capital projects initiatives, trustees agreed to set aside $10,000 annually for field maintenance.
That larger-scale maintenance work will be carried out by a vendor hired by the village.
Ice rink a go
Meanwhile, the skating rink that’s been a winter fixture at the Big Ball Park at Longcommon and Delaplaine roads has been preserved as the result of a $2,000 donation from the Big Chill Crew, the volunteer resident organization that maintains the rink each year.
Until last Friday, the rink was in danger of not happening this winter since the village was not expending funds for staff to do rink checks, pick up trash and generally supervise the rink.
As a result, the village was not extending its liability coverage to the rink, which would have otherwise been supervised by volunteers. However, the Big Chill Crew was able to raise the money to pay for the supervision to be done by village staff, and the insurance coverage was extended, according to Kosey.
Just when the rink will be set up isn’t yet known. The Riverside Junior Woman’s Charity will be spending roughly $2,500 to purchase the rink liner in addition to the Big Chill Crew’s donation.
David Jones, who heads up the Big Chill Crew, was gratified to see the village and volunteers working together to save the rink, which is an annual tradition.
“It was an example of the village manager, trustees, the Juniors, Big Chill and Laure all coming together to get the rink open in tough economic times,” Jones said.