The Parks and Recreation Committee met 11/08/2021. One of the items they took up was the request to approve the Reid Golf Course 2022 rates policy. The current rates for Reid golf course were going to remain in place with the exception of a $1 increase to the 9-hole weekday rate, bring it to $18 total, and a $375 increase to the Business Annual Pass rate, bringing it to $3,000.
Parks and Recreation Director Dean Gazza explained to the committee that the Parks and Rec Department brings the golf rate before the committee every fall for the upcoming year because they start selling the passes ahead of time and they expected some sales during the holiday season.
Director Gazza and Recreation Programmer Jeff Brazzale spoke briefly on the considerations that went into the rate change. They review all the rates annually and compare them to the rates at other area golf courses. They never want Reid to be the most expensive golf course, but they also can’t be the cheapest due to the quality of the service they are trying to provide. The $1 increase to the 9-hole weekday rate was minimal, and they felt it put them in line with everybody else.
Appleton started the business pass off with a very low and attractive rate, and the success of it has grown to the point where they sell out of those passes every year. They cap the number of corporate pass holders at 12 because if they all showed up at the same time, they could end up using 24 carts which is half of the fleet, but the city wants to make sure that those are also available for other golfers. Increasing the rate by $375 possibly seems like a lot, but it works out to around a $1 increase per round of golf for the business pass holders. Some of the business pass holders play a lot of golf. One has played over 450 rounds this year and quite a few have played over 300 rounds. The rate increase would bring their average cost per visit up to around $4.
Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) who is the Chair of the committee opened things up for comments and questions.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) was curious if there had been outreach to the business community, if there had been an increase in their interest in golf, and if there had been any reaction to the rate increase.
Jeff responded that this year there had been a few inquiries about renewing their passes. Internally, they had mentioned to a couple of those people interested in renewing that there might be a rate increase, and those pass holders made no comment. There were also a few inquiries about purchasing new business passes, but to that city staff responded that they were sold out.
Alderperson Schultz pointed out that there was more interest from the corporate community than they could accept. He wanted to know if staff could quantify that interest and if there was any way to accommodate that interest such as by increasing the number of golf carts.
Jeff responded that they were currently in a lease for golf carts so they could not add more. He couldn’t speak authoritatively on the number of businesses expressing a desire to have passes, but he thought there were 2 or 3 inquiries beyond the 12 passes that were sold.
Director Gazza gave a little bit of background on the business passes at Reid. Business passes at private courses started out with annual rates in the $10,000 range along with requirements that $1,000 per month be spent on beverages. Appleton wanted to provide business passes at a lower level, not for big corporate businesses but for smaller businesses like dental offices or HVAC companies. [I’m guessing those are examples of real-life business pass holders at Reid.] They had 5 or 6 business pass holders for a long time and then it finally grew. The value was good. A pass holder could get a maximum of 4 carts along with 4 18 holes of golf per day. If they used that every single day the golf course was open that would add up to a $30,000 value, whereas they are only paying $3,000 for the pass.
He said that they limit the number of passes and they would continue to monitor it. Depending on demand they would probably drive the price up even further.
He also mentioned that they consult with Finance Director Saucerman because they need to pay attention to the years where they spend money and they need to make sure that they have enough reserve funds. They don’t want to increase their fees more than the market will allow, but they do want to take the opportunity of increasing the fees when they can because expenses keep going up but if their fees never increase and their revenue doesn’t go up then things become difficult.
There were no further questions or comments and the committee voted 4-0 to approve the proposed rate increases.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=890287&GUID=743F6DFB-45EC-456E-AF8A-1C6D8C5A71C1
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