Monday, August 23, 2010

The people who need it most would suffer most

This rant may reveal my somewhat leftist leanings, but I digress, in advance. Let us begin.

If you read my blog or know me personally, you are aware of my opinion about user fees. I find that user fees are just a way to offload the responsibility for good municipal fiscal management onto users, creates rifts in accessibility and marginalizes low income families.

Some news I read today is a perfect case in point. At one time, the outdoor community swimming pools in this city were funded and managed by the city. The money came from the pool of tax revenue. 6 years ago the city handed the operation of public outdoor pools over to the individual community groups. Because we have had 3 summers where the cooler than average weather meant less demand for the pool, the 7 communities who operate outdoor pools have lost money (the pools are paid for through user fees and some grants from the city).

I think the majority mind set would suggest that the pools are an example of a resource that may not be viable in a city like ours. I say B.S. I believe that making users pay to use the pool contributes to the marginalization of the lower income demographic. I would offer that low income families might actually need the resource the most, after all, they can't afford to buy their own pool. Since the community pool can only survive when a specific amount of fees are collected over a period of time (in this case, over several years), it is quite easy to mentally write the resource off when attendance is low. But the fact is that summer will eventually return to this city, likely with a vengeance. Unfortunately, because we've made this about the money, the pools may not be around when we need them most. The city isn't helping matters either, by reducing the amount of grant money given to communities to maintain these resources.

I liked the old way of managing resources, where most things were paid for out of a large pool of money and the city actually had to 'manage' it, using funds to prop up marginal resources during bad times and using surpluses from resources that are doing well. It's the way our country worked in the 20th century and it worked pretty well, if you ask me. Converting everything to fee-based services does nothing to encourage the use of resources and could spell the end to universal access of the things we need most to help bind our communities together. We've always prospered as a society where the 'haves' pay a little bit more to help out the 'have nots'. I would like to see a return to that concept.

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