Almost six years after the Meadowlands YMCA started running the Rutherford community pool, the organization's contracts are up for another annual renewal by the Board of Education.
The pool was built in the late 1970s with money from a federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) grant. The act was intended to help create jobs and foster public works projects. Rutherford applied for the grant to build a community pool at Memorial Field but at the last minute the Board of Education stepped in and agreed to have it built at the high school, according to Rutherford superintendent Leslie O’Keefe.
The board of education ran the community pool program until September 2002, when it entered into a contract to allow the Meadowlands YMCA to use the pool for its community aquatics programs.
The YMCA runs about 50 classes a season, according to Ruben Salamanca, the organization's aquatics director. The classes range from pre-school to adult swimming classes as well as parent and children swimming lessons, semi-private sessions, a swim team, exercise programs for the elderly and lifeguard training.
Each of the programs comes with a fee and Rutherford residents pay the same as out-of-towners. The only difference in price is based on whether someone is already a YMCA member, in which case most fees are slightly reduced.
Though they pay the same prices, Rutherford residents get a head start on signing up for pool programs each season, according to YMCA Director Jane Egan. Brochures for each season are sent to Rutherford residents a week before anyone else receives them and sign-up is first come, first serve. O'Keefe said a similar arrangement was the case when the Board of Education ran the pool: Rutherford residents didn't get a discount but did get priority in registration.
Furthermore, Egan noted that the YMCA provides scholarships and reduced rates for people who wish to use the pool but are financially constrained. Scholarships are on a sliding scale based on income and situation, according to Egan. The Meadowlands YMCA last year granted $90,000 in scholarships, according to Egan, though she didn't know exactly how much of that was for aquatics. All of the money collected from program fees goes entirely towards maintaining the roughly 40 aquatics employees employed by the YMCA.
"Aquatics involves a lot of training and certification," said Egan. "It's an expensive program to run, between the staffing, the training and the [teacher to student] ratios." She noted that the YMCA is a non-profit organization.
O'Keefe said she's happy with the arrangement.
"Clearly we don't have the expertise in that area," she said. O'Keefe said the primary reasons for allowing the Meadowlands YMCA to operate the pool was its access to expert and well-trained aquatics employees and the chance to make better use of the facilities by hosting more programs and keeping it open later in the day and during the summer.
The Board of Education still pays for utilities and maintenance for the pool, according to O'Keefe. She said she and business administrator Bob Brown estimated the school spends about $75,000 per year to support the program. Some of the maintenance is done by school employees and other maintenance is done by YMCA employees funded by the board. One of the contracts up for renewal is for the board to pay the YMCA $19,600 for regular maintenance, part of the $75,000 total, according to O'Keefe.
Additional money is spent on the high school's swim team and on the district's elementary swimming program, held every morning for fourth and fifth graders. The board and the YMCA have a shared service agreement in which they split the cost of a lifeguard chosen by the YMCA who stays on duty during the school's elementary swim program. The annual cost to the board for the upcoming contract is $9,780, a figure that O'Keefe said isn't included in the estimated $75,000 in maintenance. She said sharing the lifeguard is necessary because regulations require a separate lifeguard needs to be present in addition to the teacher.
"It's a very good program," said Isabelle Dejeses of Lyndhurst. Her daughter is enrolled in one of the children's swimming programs at the pool. "It is a little expensive."
"The time is too short," said Sonia Lajilia of Kearny. "If the programs were one hour instead of half an hour, then it would be good." Despite her wish that the programs were longer, Lajilia said her willingness to travel from Kearny to Rutherford was testament to the quality of the classes.
