Fairfax County Park Authority staff laid out a $12 million, multi-year plan on Tuesday (Jan. 28) to factor equity into the costs paid by county residents for park services.
However, FCPA Executive Director Jai Cole’s presentation of the proposal to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at a health and human services committee meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 28) sparked concerns about the expected administrative costs.
If approved, the plan would establish a sliding fee scale based on household income at county recreation centers in fiscal year 2028, which will start on July 1, 2027. The new fee model would expand to learn-to-swim and recreation classes in FY 2029 and summer camps in FY 2030.
The park authority decided to implement the model at rec centers first, because the facilities have plenty of capacity and promote healthy lifestyles for all ages, Cole said, adding that it would be the least complicated part to implement.
The phased-in approach to adjusting fees based on a family’s income would allow county officials to “make modifications and adjustments” and learn as go went along, according to Cole.
“We want to pause every single time to see what is working, what is not working,” she said.
The supervisors expressed support for the overall concept of a sliding fee scale, and the committee chair, Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik, said starting with recreation centers made sense.
“Especially [during] daytime hours, there’s a lot of capacity,” she said.
But the plan came in for criticism about the proposed administrative and outreach costs compared to the amount of funding used to support low-income residents.
One slide in Cole’s presentation estimated that it will cost $7 million to support lower-income residents through fee reductions, but $7.2 million to cover initial bureaucratic and outreach needs.
“That can’t be right,” Board Chairman Jeff McKay said.
He was evidently correct. Staff said a newer version of the proposal has reduced the administrative and outreach costs by about $2 million compared to what was recommended by an equity study that the consultant HR&A completed in January 2024. The reduction puts the total estimated price tag at around $12 million.
McKay said even that might be too much, urging park authority staff to work with other county agencies that have experience in administering sliding-scale fees, such as the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services, which operates the School Age Child Care program.
“Take advantage of the systems we already have,” McKay said. “We’re going to have to dig a little deeper [for savings] … especially with the fiscal realities we’re dealing with.”
With the county government facing down a $292.7 million deficit, County Executive Bryan Hill had directed all agencies to identify potential cuts for his proposed fiscal year 2026 budget, which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors on Feb. 18.
To trim the park authority’s budget by 10%, FCPA staff suggested, but didn’t recommend, scaling down the annual Summer Entertainment Series, reducing tree maintenance and mowing, and closing a nature center and a historic site.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, Christopher Leonard, Fairfax’s deputy county executive for health, housing and human services, said the park authority won’t try to reinvent the wheel from a procedural standpoint and is already focused on ways to further reduce implementation costs.
“We know how to do this,” he said of variable-pricing models in human-services programming.
Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk also voiced concern about the administrative costs, as did the lone Republican supervisor, Springfield District’s Pat Herrity.
Herrity said he had no objection to income-based fee reductions, “as long as they are reasonable.” But he wondered why this effort was moving forward when there were, in his view, higher priorities for the park authority.
“The number-one concern I get on parks is maintenance,” Herrity said. “We are in bad shape.”
Lusk, Palchik, Mason District’s Andres Jimenez nad Sully’s Kathy Smith were among supervisors saying that to fully promote equity in park usage, transportation challenges also had to be taken into account.
The inability to get to parks and recreation facilities represents “a huge barrier” to some residents, Jimenez said.
Despite all the concerns, Lusk pronounced himself “very, very pleased” with the road map that was on the table.
“This is the direction we need to go,” he said.
Cole said the variety of concerns and issues raised shows that the equity plan is a complicated endeavor, justifying the incremental approach to implementation.
“This is a herculean effort,” she said. “It’s going to take a concerted effort from all of us [to] make sure we’re getting it right.”
