Independence may be getting a splash pad in Memorial Park at some point in the future.
The possibility arose during Mayor Chris Reinersman’s annual budget address to the Independence City Council on Monday.
Reinersman began by speaking about the proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. He was generally positive about the city’s financial health, saying that “things are looking great here in Independence,” adding that the proposed budget does not rely on increased property taxes and that the city was beginning to rely less on property tax and more on payroll tax than in the past.
“Our ability to maintain and reduce the property tax rate as we have for these last several years can largely be attributed to my consistent goal of revenue diversification,” Reinersman said. “Our first full year budget in 2016-2017 projected property taxes at nearly 50% of the total revenue while payroll, occupational license revenue was less than 30%. This gap has closed substantially.”
Draft budget documents furnished by the city put projected payroll tax revenues for the next fiscal year at about $4.9 million and payroll tax revenues at $4.5 million. The draft budget put overall revenues exceeding overall expenses, as well.
Reinersman’s statement led to a broader discussion of what the city ought to invest in, particularly the potential for a community splash pad. Other communities in the region, such as Wilder and Covington, already have splash pads in operation.
Much of the discussion at the meeting was preliminary, and the council took no official action. But the discussion suggested that the city could soon be making moves to prepare.
Reinersman asked the council to consider setting aside funds to build a splash pad at Memorial Park. The mayor estimated the cost of building a splash pad to be about $500,000 and recommended splitting the funding over a three-year period, beginning in the current fiscal year—which would require action from the council—and continuing over the next two fiscal years. He added that the city would likely seek grant funding to offset the expense.
Council members discussed specific locations within the park where the pad might go as well as the overall community need for such a facility and just how the city should fund the project.
Councilmember Chris Vogelpohl said he was okay with setting some money aside, but he wanted more investigation into how much a splash pad would cost.
“I think we owe it to the citizens to do a deeper dive into what it’s going to cost,” Vogelpohl said.
He recommended setting aside money in the budget in case they needed it so that it wouldn’t be spent erroneously while the city performed its investigation.
Councilmember Carol Franzen said she’d be willing to consider it but expressed some concerns about how the facility would be run and maintained.
For instance, if there was some sort of sanitary issue with the pad, “Who’s going to supervise that?” Franzen asked. “Who’s going to keep the water on and off, especially if it’s recirculating water? Is it going to be chlorinated, bromine, is it going to be salt water? What’s going to happen if the pumps go out?”
There were a lot of questions that needed to be addressed, Franzen said, before the city could seriously consider pursuing the construction of a splash pad, although she did not think that a splash pad would likely affect the city’s liability insurance, unlike a conventional full-sized pool.
As it related to grant funding, the mayor and council agreed that preliminary engineering documents would need to be prepared if the city hoped to apply for a grant. Reinersman recommended consulting with neighboring cities, the Kentucky League of Cities, and the health department to learn more about relevant regulations.
Like Vogelpohl, councilmember Greg Steffen recommended setting aside some money in this year’s and next year’s budgets. That way, if the splash pad didn’t work out, that money could be re-appropriated to something else down the line.
“If it doesn’t work, and all the indicators come up negative at that point, this money goes back in the pool, and it isn’t spent,” Steffen said.
Discussion continued, and the mayor recommended earmarking funds to start, even though a final decision likely wouldn’t come for some time. Council members Franzen and Steffen agreed to work together with city staff members to investigate costs and logistics related to the project so the council could have a better idea about moving forward with the decision in the future.
The council will vote on whether to enact both the proposed budget for next fiscal and the set-aside for the splash pad in this year’s budget at their meeting next month. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. on June 3 at the Independence City Building on Madison Pike.