Details remain to be worked out, but County Board members have informally decided not to eliminate gymnastics programming or close Cherrydale Library in the coming year.
Details on both decisions are likely to come into clearer view this afternoon, when Board members hold their budget markup session starting at 2:30 p.m. Final budget adoption is slated for next Wednesday, April 22.
“I don’t think it’s crazy breaking news,” but it was worth making public, County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said at a Monday (April 13) budget wrap-up session.
Eliminating gymnastics programming at Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center and closing the branch library were the two most controversial items in County Manager Mark Schwartz’s draft $1.7 billion budget proposal made in February. Advocates supporting both quickly mobilized, turning out in force at budget hearings.
At the April 13 work session, de Ferranti acknowledged a Board majority had emerged some time ago to save the gymnastics program — both competitive and recreational — but a public announcement was delayed as details were worked through among Board members and staff.
“We hadn’t done enough of the thinking” to make a formal announcement earlier, he said.
Specifics likely will be detailed at today’s markup session.
“There’s like four different scenarios being considered — we’ll see which one we actually come up with,” Board member Susan Cunningham told members of the Park and Recreation Commission at its April 14 meeting.
A final decision will “begin to wean the competitive gymnastics program off of tax support,” Cunningham predicted.
De Ferranti spoke along the same lines.
“The Board’s direction that we are likely to pursue is to do fee increases that will not be insignificant,” he said.
The gymnastics programs run at a net annual operating deficit of about $970,000 that taxpayers cover. As part of the proposal to end the programs, Schwartz also recommended closing the Barcroft facility for up to a year so its physical condition could be evaluated and future uses considered.
As for the fate of Cherrydale Library, de Ferranti said on April 13 the Board was “not inclined” to close it this year.
Shuttering the library would save about a half-million dollars per year. It frequently has been a target of budget-cutters, having previously survived closure attempts in 1977, 1992 and 1998. In 2009, library boosters beat back a plan to cut the library’s operations in half to three days per week.
