A city proposal to slash operating hours at public pools this summer to help balance the budget is being walked back.
While a cut to hours for public use of the city's pools is still likely, it won't be a drastic as an initial proposal that drew the ire of pool users and some members of the city council.
The Tucson Parks and Recreation Department released its proposed summer schedule on May 10 for pool hours and swim lessons. It showed a severe drop in the total amount of hours that could be offered across the cityâs public pools. Under the initial plan, city pools would be offered to the public for a total of 510 hours in through June and July, a roughly 37% cut from last yearâs offering.
That's a big drop from June and July last year, when the city offered a total of 802 hours of free access across its 20 pools, generating total attendance during that period of nearly 88,000 users.
The cuts vary by facility. For example, the pools at Edith Ball Adaptive Recreation Center were open for the most hours last year â 65 per week â and saw the second-most attendance through the months of June and July â a little over 12,600 visitors. As it currently stands, Edith Ball would instead be open 40 hours per week this summer, about a 38% cut.
Some are even more stringent. At Sunnyside Pool, which will see about a 66% reduction in hours open to the public â 47 to 16 hours per week â or Jesse Owens, Kennedy and Palo Verde pools, which would see their hours nearly cut in half, from 31 to 16 hours per week.
The plan to slash hours came to a head during Tuesday's city council meeting during budget discussions. The approval of the next fiscal year's budget â which run from July 1 to June 30 â is set for June 4.
"You know, when weâre the third-hottest city in the summers, we have many days over 100 (degrees), if you have resources, if your family has resources, you belong to a club or you have a pool of your own," then this may not affect you, said Vice Mayor Kevin Dahl, but "these pools serve so many families and children that reducing hours is the wrong direction."
âI was shocked at the 37% reduction without it being discussed amongst any of us,â Dahl said to his fellow councilmembers on Tuesday. "Maybe things can be moved around, but I would like to see more hours.â
Budgets, demand and staffing
The proposed cut to hours came down to these factors: budget concerns, public demand and pool use and the efficient use of staff, according to Lara Hamwey, the director of Tucson's Parks and Recreation department.
"In 2023, (the parks department) was able, for the first time in many years, to open all 20 pools," Hamwey wrote in a May 17 memo. "The staffing plan was developed without knowing what the utilization of the pools would be by the public. Operating hours were piloted to see what response would be."
The department "piloted" its schedules and staffing that year, which resulted in the department exceeding its non-permanent lifeguard budget last fiscal year, Hamwey said in the memo, and the department "anticipates to a lesser degree to do the same" this fiscal year, she said.
In fiscal year 2022-23, the department's lifeguard budget was a little more than $4.14 million, but it spent over $6.5 million. This current fiscal year, $5.3 million was budgeted and $5.8 million was spent, according to Hamwey's memo. The department is currently projected to spend more than $7.4 million on lifeguards.
'They need a little direction'
A motion by Dahl on Tuesday to set a baseline of 802 hours failed.
Instead, the council tabled discussing pool hours to its June 4 meeting, when the city is set to adopt the budget.
âI want to know how Iâm supposed to trust the judgement of the parks department on aquatics when they didnât inform us in the first place," Councilman Paul Cunningham said at the meeting. "They failed to do what was right in the first place, so they need a little direction from us."
âI think they have to understand that Iâm willing to help out, Iâm willing to help out to do stuff on the side to raise money in the private sector, to make sure that the pools in Ward 2 have the same service delivery," Cunningham said, "but they have to come and talk to us, and work with us. They canât just send out a memo three days before we vote on the budget, cutting pools by 37%.â
Michael Ortega, the city manager, told the council Tuesday that at least 29 hours a week can be added back into the plan.
These additional 29 hours will be applied to five pools, Hamwey told the Star on Friday. However, she was unsure what a total amount of hours offered could look like. She said that the parks department is "working towards" providing an updated schedule, by the end of the week.
Ortega said adding hours back into the city's pool schedule "could be at the expense of other things, or other revenues." No details on where cuts could occur have not been provided.
Pool access a health issue
Cutting access to city pools is a health and safety issue, said Kathy Jacobs, director of the University of Arizona's Center for Climate Adaption Science and Solutions.
"Anything that we can do that helps people who off in the summer is a climate adaptation," Jacobs told the Star. "So, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to shut community pools when we're trying to provide opportunities, particularly for people who may not have a lot of money, to have access to relatively inexpensive way to cool off and get some exercise."
Jacobs, who once ran the now-shuttered Tucson office of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, says public pools are important water-saving tools to get people the resources they need in an efficient way.
"Obviously you are getting more people in the water per gallon than if you will have hundreds, or even thousands of individual pools, so it does save water... you might as well get as much use of the water as you possibly can in order to be water efficient," she said. "But the other point, of course, is it's getting hotter-and-hotter in the summer."
"People need ways to cool off, and for some people, this might be one of the very few ways they can recreate and cool off in the summer."
Last year was the third-warmest year on record in Tucson. And July 2023 was the single-hottest month on record in Tucson weather history.
The effects of this heat aren't hard to imagine, as the county recorded 126 heat-related deaths last year. The figure for heat-related deaths rises to 176 when migrant deaths are included the grim tally.
More than half of those â 91 of them â occurred in July, according to the Pima County's data dashboard on heat deaths.
"We already are in (the situation of not having enough resources). There are many people who live in the greater Tucson area that don't have access to all the resources they need in order to stay cool in summer," Jacobs said. "So, this is not a future condition, it's the current condition, and we need to be making all the attempts we can to make this the town more livable."
