Is the fee structure for Arlington’s gymnastics and aquatics teams appropriate?

The Arlington County Board adopted a “cost recovery model” in 2010 to set targets for registration and participation fees for programs operated or sponsored by DPR, including these teams. The model stipulates that DPR must recover a higher percentage of costs when a program’s benefits are more individualized.

For Arlington's gymnastics and aquatics teams, DPR seeks to recover at least 85 percent but not more than 100 percent of direct program costs (such as personnel and equipment), including an allocated portion of DPR’s overhead (such as marketing, registration, and scheduling).

DPR currently calculates participation fees (for these teams and for other programs) by determining the minimum enrollment needed to run the program. It determines annual fees by dividing the total costs to be recovered by the minimum level of enrollment.

However, actual enrollment has typically exceeded the minimum level. Thus, revenue from team participation fees has generally exceeded the maximum 100 percent recovery level. DPR returns excess revenue to Arlington County's general fund.

The work group determined that the team participation fees are higher than the average fees charged by comparable facilities in the DC Metro area.

Therefore, the work group is considering recommending that DPR adjust the way it calculates these fees by:  

1. Determining participation fees based on the expected (versus minimum) number of team participants; and
2. Establishing a collaborative fee-setting process that involves DPR, team coaches, and representatives from the teams' parent associations.

If adopted, these adjustments would be likely to reduce participation fees, bringing the amount charged for gymnastics team membership closer to levels seen across our region and potentially reducing total fee revenue in the short term.

According to DPR, the non-resident surcharges have no quantitative basis and are not tied to any specific policy objective. Surcharges for non-resident team members are not uniform and currently range from 12 to 46 percent of the individual’s participation fee. This translates into a cost of $135-$865 for gymnastics team members and $135-$908 for the aquatics team members.

The work group supports a more uniform approach for setting non-resident surcharges. After reviewing non-resident surcharges of comparable county- and municipal-run gymnastics and aquatics programs in neighboring jurisdictions, it found that some levied surcharges of between 10 and 20 percent, some cap these surcharges at a specific dollar amount, and some nearby programs do not collect any non-resident surcharge at all.

The work group is considering recommending that DPR:

1. Establish a uniform surcharge for non-resident athletes of 10 percent.
2. Cap surcharge payments on an annual basis at $200.

As a result, individuals’ surcharges would still vary depending on their participation fee but none of them would rise above $200 a year. In contrast, the prior proposal to adopt a uniform 50 percent surcharge beginning in the 2015 fiscal year would have resulted in surcharges as high as $2,530 for some non-resident team members.

The work group is also considering a recommendation that surcharges be reviewed every five years and the cap could be adjusted based on economic factors.