Park district looks at iffy budget

by Scott Hunter

A draft budget for the Coulee Area Park and Recreation District could be slashed in half, or not, depending on what other agencies do.

The $57,005 bottom line for the agency with no direct revenue of its own would have to be altered substantially if levels of support from local cities stay low, or if Grant County commissioners don’t approve a grant request for work the district would like to accomplish this year.

Chairman Phil Hansen’s simple budget includes a donation of $9,000 from Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam, but neither has budgeted those amounts for the CAPRD from their hotel/motel tax funds, he said at the commission’s meeting Monday night.

Only Electric City authorized the expenditures of those tourism promotion funds. District commissioners authorized the contract to accept $6,000 from the city Monday night.

The district asked Grant County for a $25,000 grant from its Strategic Infrastructure Program to fund the development of plans for a community/wellness center, a project that would be postponed if the county turns them down.

The county’s SIP advisory board was recommending the grant be OK’d, if such a center had been included in Grand Coulee’s economic development portion of its comprehensive plan. One is mentioned as a goal in that comp plan, but it doesn’t contain a chapter just for economic development.

The park district will hold a public hearing on the matter Jan. 29 at 5 p.m. at the Grand Coulee Dam Middle School.