ST LOUIS DROPS FEE FOOR POOLS, REC CENTERS by David Hunn, St Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday, July 11, 2010 12:00 am |Kids can play in city pools and gyms for free again this summer, thanks to a last-minute shift of tax money set aside for crime prevention.

Aldermen have been trying to spend the money — $1 million a year from the public safety sales tax proposition passed by city voters two years ago — but they haven't been able to agree on how. In the meantime, the money has largely been siphoned off to backfill other programs.

Then this summer, aldermen learned that a new $10-per-month fee was keeping kids out of the city's seven recreation centers. Nearly 900 residents signed up for summer programs in June last year, said Gary Bess, director of city Parks, Recreation and Forestry. This June, only 600 enrolled, a drop of about one-third.

"Without a doubt, I think the fee is keeping some people away," Bess said last week. And that frustrated some aldermen.

"Why would you have kids sitting outside?" questioned 22nd Ward Alderman Jeffrey Boyd.

Fred Wessels, 13th Ward alderman, said, "We shouldn't be charging kids to go to rec centers. What better way to keep kids off the street than city recreation programs?"

So aldermen began talking about the $1.3 million left in the crime prevention account.

Proposition S had passed with 55 percent of the vote in February 2008. The half-cent sales tax increase was projected to raise $18 million a year to hire more police officers and replenish police and firefighter retirement systems.

A total of $1 million annually was also promised to city aldermen, to be used on crime prevention projects.

But the aldermen's plans to spend the money fell apart last year when some learned that nearly $1 million would be going to projects tall on political connections and short on proven records.

And that left crime prevention projects at a virtual standstill. At the start of the fiscal year that ended June 30, the account contained nearly $2 million. Aldermen shifted $1 million to fill a budget gap in juvenile and drug court costs and contracted about $500,000 to crime prevention programs.

For the current fiscal year, another $1 million was added to the account. And, again, $200,000 went to courts, leaving about $1.3 million to be spent on crime prevention.

At last week's meeting of the Public Safety Committee, which decides how to spend the money, aldermen expressed frustration at the dollar-shifting and delays.

"I'm tired of dealing with this," Alderman Marlene Davis, 19th Ward, exclaimed during the meeting. "Give them the damn money! I'm looking at kids dying every day, and you want to sit up here and fight over $1 million?"

So, Friday, the committee voted unanimously to send $500,000 from the crime prevention budget to the city's rec centers, to offset the new fees for children 18 and under. Bess, the parks director, said it would probably be enough to end the discounted $5-per-month fee for seniors, too.

He said the move would prevent crime by keeping kids off the streets and "involved in something positive."

Besides, the monthly charge wasn't really working. The parks department had hoped to help offset the city's $46 million budget gap this year and figured it could make about $1 million in new fees.

Instead, kids just weren't coming. And the downturn didn't save the centers money either, Bess said. "When you open a pool, you have to fill up the lifeguard stations," he said.

Many at City Hall see the move as good for everyone. Taxpayer money gets used, instead of sitting in a bank. Kids and seniors get to swim for free in a hot summer.

"We pass this today and we can be the good guys," Wessels said. "This budget doesn't allow for many good guys."