The Jefferson City Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department is planning for its debt service payments in the upcoming fiscal year.
The Parks Department's proposed Fiscal Year 2020 budget did not change much from the FY2019 budget, Parks Director Todd Spalding told the Jefferson City Budget Committee on Thursday. FY2020 begins Nov. 1.
The overall mayor-approved parks fund for FY2020 is more than $8.7 million.
A significant change in the FY2020 proposed budget is the $750,000 in debt service payments, which account for nearly 42 percent of the Parks Department administration division's nearly $1.8 million proposed budget.
The department plans to pay $750,000 in debt service payments to help pay off an anticipated $7 million-$8 million in bonds.
The bonds will help pay for improvements at Community Park, 725 Marshall St.; McClung Park, 930 McClung Park Drive; and Ellis-Porter Riverside Park, 300 Ellis-Porter Drive. The commission listed those parks as its top three priorities from the parks master plan, which outlines park improvements over the next 20 years.
"We couldn't be more excited to be moving that forward," Spalding said.
The administration division's sole pink sheet - funding requests from departments - was for a graphics production coordinator. The $56,700 pink sheet was not funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The Parks Department also requested slightly more funds for the outdoor recreation division, which has a proposed FY2020 budget of $348,734.
"That's a new area for us, and it's an area that has tremendous potential for growth - our outdoor ropes courses, our outdoor programs that we have at Binder and some other parks," Spalding said. "We wanted to put a little bit of money into that."
The division requested three pink sheet items for a total of $16,000. All of them were funded in the mayor-approved budget.
One $8,000 pink sheet was for additional ropes course apparatus. The ropes course, located in Binder Park, off Rainbow Drive, contains 15 high and low elements, according to the pink sheet.
The department began accepting group and individual rentals at the ropes challenge course for the first time earlier this year. Before this summer, the ropes course was only available for camps through the Parks Department.
The outdoor recreation division also requested a campground reservation software for $4,000 and replacement canoes, kayaks, oars and paddles for $4,000.
The camps and community enrichment division has a proposed budget of $441,798.
The division requested $18,000 worth of pink sheet items. None of the four pink sheets were funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The pink sheets included wooden and rock inground steps to the Osage River at Camp Green Berry, as well as electrical enhancement and a refrigerator enclosure at Camp Green Berry. The division also requested screens for outdoor pavilions at Ellis-Porter Riverside Park, Memorial Park and Binder Park.
The Parks Department's maintenance division has a proposed budget of more than $2.46 million.
The division submitted 16 pink sheets requests - a total of $657,500. None of the requests were funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The requests included a new grapple truck, two 1-ton heavy-duty trucks with flatbed dump, tracked skid steer, janitorial route truck, crew cab truck, recovery trailer, 12-foot dump trailer, snow plow, parts washer, utility vehicle, flat-bed 5500 series dump with hitch, two-wheel drive compact truck, tilt trailer and tandem axle, single-axle light-duty trailer, and lockable storage container.
The multipurpose building division has a proposed FY2020 budget of $600,686.
The division had two of its four pink sheets funded in the mayor-approved budget - indoor futsal goals for $6,000 and electric basketball goal height adjusters for $6,000.
The division also requested an outdoor fitness court for $100,000 and an assisted chin/dip machine for $6,000, but neither of these items were funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The proposed budget for the Washington Park Ice Arena is $748,685.
Parks staff submitted five pink sheets for the ice arena for a total of $141,000. None of the pink sheet requests were funded.
The requests were for replacement flooring in the hockey bench areas and penalty boxes, a replacement hockey scoreboard, countertops for the warming house, new desks and chairs for the offices, and an ice resurfacing machine.
The Oak Hills Golf Course division's proposed budget for FY2020 is $750,971.
The division submitted three pink sheet requests for a total of $85,500. Those requests included a greens mower, verti-cutter and compact utility tractor.
None of the requests were funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The recreation programs division has a proposed FY2020 budget of $953,697.
The division requested two pink sheet items - a point of sale system for concessions and digital displays for concessions. The $35,000 pink sheet requests were not funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The Memorial Pool division has a proposed FY2020 budget of nearly $307,071, and the Ellis-Porter Riverside Pool division has a proposed budget of $224,803.
The division submitted a pink sheet request for $20,000 to purchase a soft service ice cream machine for Memorial Pool. The request was not funded in the mayor-approved budget.
The Parks Department's capital purchases fund has a proposed budget of $83,300.
The department's budget also includes a proposed $7,500 for transfers and subsidies.
The overall proposed mayor-approved budget for FY2020 is more than $65.1 million. The general fund budget for FY2020 is more than $32.9 million.