Stock photo courtesy of the City of Vernon

By Liam Verster

Rec Services Report

UPDATE: Attendance down for Recreation Services, but aquatics revenue up

Apr 23, 2024 | 6:00 AM

Though attendance may have dropped for Vernon recreation facilities last quarter, there was more money coming in.

At the regular meeting Monday, April 22, Vernon City Council heard there were declines in participation during the first three months of the year, which Gary Lefebvre, Aquatics Manager of Recreation Services, said could be attributed to the new two-tiered rate system impacting the number of people coming in from outside Vernon and the municipalities that have recreation agreements with the city, as well as staffing shortages throughout the facility.

Despite this, revenue was up in one department this past quarter.

“Even though we had lower user-ship in the aquatics area, we were about eight per cent higher in the revenue numbers,” the aquatics manager told council.

He added the increase could possibly be attributed to visitors paying more for programs and drop-ins at the pool.

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Lefebvre added Recreation Services was running training and certification programs that should result in increased staffing in the near future.

Speaking with Vernon Matters, Mayor Victor Cumming said recreation staff shortages were not unexpected.

“As people remember, we had the COVID pandemic and because of that, we lost a bunch of our short term staff who [run] maybe a course or two,” Cumming stated.

“We didn’t necessarily have all the staffing we needed that would match the demands, so our numbers were down.”

He added revenue being up in the aquatics department was a good sign.

Council also heard Monday that over 3,000 Vernon Resident Passes had been filled out and entered into the system, which Cumming said he was pleased to hear, noting that required a lot of hard work by recreation staff in order to make the transition smooth and get people properly signed up.

After presenting the quarterly update, Recreation Services was tasked with reporting back on the attendance impacts caused by the staff shortages compared to the new resident pass initiative when more data is available, as well as reporting on revenues from the other recreation service departments in the first quarter of 2024.