Burnsville considers fees for frequent field users

Council members agreed at a March 7 work session to convene representatives of youth athletic groups that have been using the fields for free.

Council Member Dan Kealey suggested the fee, which some cities charge their frequent field users. Mayor Elizabeth Kautz said she supports a fee, noting that the Burnsville Athletic Club provides scholarships to help some families afford its programs.

Last September the council ordered a review of youth athletic field policies, which haven’t been updated since 2018, said Parks, Recreation and Facilities Director Garrett Beck.

The review arose in part in response to a youth soccer club that doesn’t qualify for free use of city fields but wants to use them and has difficulty scheduling them, Kealey said. The group uses School District 191 fields and provides soccer programming in exchange, he said.

“If anything comes out of this, I would like to see that everyone has to pay some fee to access and use these (city) fields,” Kealey said, pointing to “budget pressures” and a lack of “cost-sharing” in a system with “two different classes of users.”

Council Member Vince Workman called for the user groups to be consulted.

“Youth sports are already struggling to get kids involved, and I could see this being another potential roadblock,” he said. “I understand they have ways to help with people that can’t necessarily afford this, but any time we do something like this, we always get the public involved, and I don’t think this would be any different.”

Beck recommended clarifying the city’s priority list for field use, with city events getting top priority, followed by Burnsville-area youth athletic associations second, nonprofit athletic groups serving Burnsville youth third and all other groups fourth.

Rental fees are charged only to fourth-priority groups, Beck said. The Burnsville-area associations have contributed money and “sweat equity” to park improvements such as the $200,000 concession stand at Sue Fischer Fields, he said. Groups must meet criteria to qualify for second and third priority, he said.

In a 2018 survey of area and comparable cities, Burnsville was one of six that didn’t charge their second-priority groups a fee, Beck said. Eight did.

Fees were typically charged per player or per team and covered the entire season, Beck said. A per-player range among cities was about $3 to $13, he said.

“So it’s a pretty small fee” that “would not be a significant factor on the cost of registration,” Kealey said. Added association fees for registering late are far greater by comparison, he said.

Workman suggested eliminating the hourly fees charged to the lowest-priority groups. The city should study the revenue implications, he said.

“I would rather see us create more accessibility than less,” Workman said.