At our third Town Hall, we invited attendees to share their questions on sticky notes — and wow, did you deliver! From funding and priorities to who makes decisions and how. Your questions reflected the care, curiosity, and thoughtfulness that make this community so special.
After the meeting, we sat down as a committee to read every single note and thoughtfully answer each one and published them here. We’re grateful for the opportunity to clarify, connect, and continue this important conversation about the future of recreation on Lopez.
If the levy doesn’t pass but the resolution to form the District does pass, then we’ll have an unfunded Lopez Rec. After-school and summer programs will cease to exist when LIFRC’s grant expires in 2027. Without funding for school sports, the school district will be forced to make additional cuts or scramble for deeper donations, year after year, with no stability or support in sight. The time really is now to pass this ballot measure.
Public input will be central to how Lopez Rec will operate – after all, this is By Lopez, For Lopez. The commissioners will be responsive to the community’s needs and priorities, and public entities always work best when public input is at the heart of decision-making. Open meetings are required by law, ensuring transparency, but there are other opportunities to provide input as well.
For example:
The goal is to make sure that Lopez Rec reflects the voices of our community. Your participation will shape how programs are developed, how resources are allocated, and how the district grows to serve everyone on the island.
If passed, we strongly encourage everyone to get involved – attend meetings, share your ideas, and help build a Parks and Recreation District that truly meets the needs of Lopez Island. This is your future district, and your input will help guide its success.
There are several real problems Lopez Rec will address, including the expiring grant that supports after-school and summer programming, access to sustainable activities for all Lopezians, and the school’s budget shortfall. Through an interlocal cooperation agreement (the legal term for different government entities working together), Lopez Rec will fully fund school sports at $180,000, which frees up those funds to be spent on core education. Lopez Rec is the only sustainable (over many years) and significant (big dollar amount) solution currently available to the district. We don’t currently see other ways to address the school’s budget shortfall, but there are other ways Lopez Rec can have a collaborative and beneficial relationship with the school, including school based activities for youth – if approved by commissioners in collaboration with community input.
Daycare is a word generally associated with toddlers through preschool ages. These services are currently provided through our Children’s Center (who have endorsed Lopez Rec!). They’ve got this covered for our community – we’re thankful for their great work.
After-school and summer programs, also called out-of-school programs, are for K-5 aged children and Lopez Rec absolutely intends to provide this programming – it’s one of the three main funding priorities of Lopez Rec.
In our committee’s initial outreach to local organizations, we met with LIFRC and they informed us that the grant that currently funds these programs is set to expire and they asked that we include this programming in our vision for Lopez Rec. This long-term planning means that this programming can continue without a pause and our working families won’t be left scrambling.
A note on efficiencies: the LIFRC currently uses a $330,000 grant to fund after-school and summer programs. Anticipating that a Rec Director would substantially staff the administration of the programs, we reduced the anticipated levy expenditure to $200,000.
The Rally for the Rec vision is to fully fund school sports, including all current varsity, JV and middle school sports. Island Rec does this on San Juan with a Memorandum of Understanding between San Juan Island School District and Island Rec that is negotiated by Park Commissioners. Commissioners make final decisions about budgeting and have general oversight.
Non-school related recreational sports (or activities) will be responsive to community interest and feedback, but will ultimately be overseen and implemented by the director and commissioners.
Commissioners are responsible for managing the budget and creating policies and procedures and the director will be responsible for implementing programs. The likely plan is that commissioners will develop an application process for instructors applying to offer programming. As an example, if a community member wants to lead a watercolor art class, they’ll start by filling out an application developed by the commissioners. The approval of the application will follow commissioner guidelines (for example, anti-discrimination policies, accessible facilities, etc.) and be evaluated by the director to gauge community interest, feasibility, and facility availability.
Also, commissioners, along with the director, will help facilitate agreements between cooperating organizations offering programming. For example, the Pack and LIFRC currently offer youth soccer. If those organizations wanted to hand off the programming to Lopez Rec (and maybe they don’t – the idea is to support, never supplant), the director and commissioners will all collaborate with the organizations to set up the program.
We’ve never identified 50% going to overhead! There’s lots of ways to talk about budgets and it’s also important to remember that only elected commissioners can develop an actual budget. Our committee considered lots of factors when we landed on the 37 cent levy rate. We wanted to directly fund school sports and anticipated a $180,000 expenditure of levy revenue. Funding after-school and summer programming will support our working families, so we allocated for that as well. LIFRC currently funds the programming with a $330,000 grant, but we thought we could reduce that by having our director implement and support the programming, so our committee reduced the anticipated allocation to $200,000.
In our years-long communication with our community and with dozens of Park and Recs across the region, we learned about anticipated operational expenses. Park and Rec departments are often part of a city or county government and access legal, accounting, insurance and other supports through the local government. Lopez does not have a local government to provide that infrastructure, so we must include that in our budgeting.
Please visit the levy page on our website for more details on how we got to the 37 cents. And remember:the elected commissioners will develop and create the actual operational budget.
The County resolution that placed this initiative on the November ballot clearly directs Lopez Rec to fund school sports, after-school and summer programs, and set aside 10% of levy revenue for capital improvements ( to caretake our shared physical resources).
There’s a lot of work ahead for the future commissioners to implement the full vision of Lopez Rec – a lot of learning, listening, adapting, growing, and responding to create something that is an actual budget.
As a recap on the democratic process: our committee formed to generate a solution to a problem and then engaged in research and community outreach; our committee created the petition and gathered signatures to put Lopez Rec on the ballot; our committee engages with our community to inform and support voter choice; voters choose to form the district, fund the district with the levy, and elect commissioners; elected commissioners govern the District.
The vision for recreational activities for all Lopezians includes three approaches:
Once Lopez Rec infrastructure is set up and running, additional recreational programming can be provided efficiently and can preserve, sustain and expand offerings for all Lopezians. By utilizing the support of the structure of Lopez Rec, the costs of these programs are minimal as they are primarily funded through participation fees, as modeled by Park and Recreation Districts across the state.
As a Parks and Recreation District, Lopez Rec can obtain insurance that covers all of its programs and activities. This means that if other organizations or instructors partner with Lopez Rec, their activities could also be included under the district’s insurance. Parks and Rec districts partner with organizations and individual instructors in many ways, so there are options for accessing insurance, registration software, facilities, training, and more.
For example, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), through partnerships with insurance providers, offers programs tailored to parks and recreation organizations. These programs include umbrella liability coverage, allowing multiple entities to be insured under a single policy. This approach simplifies insurance management and provides comprehensive coverage for a variety of recreational activities.
There are also other models and options available, and it will be the responsibility of the commissioners to explore which approach is most appropriate for Lopez Rec. And if you’re wondering whether or not insurance is necessary – Yes! Insurance protects staff, participants, and the financial resources our community is investing in. Good intentions don’t prevent lawsuits; courts adjudicate based upon law, not the honor system.
For simplicity, and as modeled by Island Rec on San Juan, we identified the expected expenditures our three priorities would cost and then included in each a weighted percentage of the indirect costs to safely operate a Park and Rec District. This is how organizations that fund multiple programs share the cost of running the organization. See our levy page for more details.
Lopez Rec can definitely support additional youth programming on Lopez, but the Rally for the Rec committee can see no programs besides the school athletic program that are currently funded by the school budget that could be funded by Lopez Rec and relieve the school budget challenges. Having said that, in terms of extra enrichment activities, field trips and special programs that are outside of the school budget, it would make sense for Lopez Rec to consider how, in partnership with the school, it could support such opportunities.
Many of those students were attending remotely during the pandemic and may or may not have remained on Lopez. We also graduated 25 seniors last year and have only 16 kindergarteners, so some of the enrollment drop is due to that. Several students entered the district this year from home-schooling and from other local schools, which is a start. Ensuring we have school sports with Lopez Rec and providing a year-round array of recreational activities for youth will definitely help retain and recruit students as well!
Yes, the vision is to use LISD transportation staff at their pay rate for any use of the buses. LISD will continue to run the school sports program, pay their coaches, utilize school facilities, and pay their transportation staff; Lopez Rec will reimburse LISD according to a Memorandum of Understanding – same sports we know and love, different funding source.
Thank you for your support! Our vision includes island-wide programming for all Lopezians. The local organizations that have endorsed us are also excited about the efficiencies provided to them through the support for all-ages recreational programming. Once the infrastructure of Lopez Rec is in place, organizations and individuals will be able to offer a wide variety of programming in partnership with Lopez Rec.
This is definitely a possibility! Current clubs fall under the Associated Student Body (ASB) and there are regulations around those. Other clubs could be formed and administered by Lopez Rec if there is interest from students and the commissioners agree to provide for them.
As a formation committee, we are not responsible for final budget decisions. That responsibility belongs to the future Parks & Recreation District commissioners (once the district is formed.) However, we conducted two years of research to arrive at the budget vision that we have shared with fixed amounts identified to preserve school sports and after-school and summer programming, estimated amounts for insurance, registration software, staffing, accounting, etc that are necessary to run the district legally, safely and accountably and provide recreational activities for all Lopezians.
Once the district is approved, the elected commissioners will hold public meetings to set and adopt a formal budget, ensuring full transparency and community input every step of the way.
In response to this question we have since added a page on our website dedicated to the levy and the factors that went into proposing the levy rate. There are also a number of useful articles in the Rally Rundown page on our website on topics related to this question, including things like “Why Do We Need a Director.”
The commissioners are responsible for all funding decisions, including staffing. Our committee researched the salaries of Parks and Rec Departments both regionally and across the state in order to make sure elected commissioners have sufficient resources to run the District. The Washington State average salary for a P&R Director is $117,000, but local salary comparables are equally as important. Commissioners will determine actual salary and staffing decisions – all in open public meetings and in response to community input.
The elected commissioners of Lopez Rec would be responsible for the budget.
The salaries shown in our examples are estimates, based on current market rates and what it would likely take to retain qualified local staff to coordinate island-wide recreation programs. These figures were used to help model a realistic and responsible levy rate, not to lock in specific salaries. Once the Parks & Recreation District is formed, the elected commissioners will have full authority to review, adjust, and approve all salaries as part of the formal budgeting process — in public meetings that invite community input.
We don’t have this slide to show because it’s up to the elected commissioners to develop an actual budget – but we do have a levy page that takes a more detailed look at the decision making behind the levy rate.
Please see our levy page!
The operations costs weren’t shown separately on the slide because the slide was illustrating how Parks & Rec allocates its funding across program areas, rather than showing the full operational budget.
For simplicity, and as modeled by Island Rec on San Juan, we identified the expected expenditures our three priorities would cost and then included in each a weighted percentage of what it costs to run a Park and Rec District. This is how organizations that fund multiple programs share the cost of running the organization. See our levy page for more details.
The newly elected commissioners will be responsible for making sure all district funds are managed responsibly and transparently. Once in place, the board will set policies for how money is allocated and monitored. They’ll set up policies and procedures (sorry for the boring words, but that’s what commissioners do!) for how locals looking to provide programming will be evaluated and paid (often set up as a standard application and with set ratios for revenue sharing). Commissioners will also establish interlocal cooperation agreements (again, just a legal term for government agencies working together to create efficiencies of public resources) with the school. Every financial decision will happen in public meetings and be part of the public record, following open meeting laws and state accountability standards.
In short, cost control comes through public oversight (your voices matter!), transparent decision-making (attend the open public meetings!), and clear board policies that set the system up for success – all of which are built into how the district is legally required to operate.
Yes, we were all there. The candidate forum was hosted by the League of Women Voters, so only contested candidates were invited to speak.
The candidate slide was only shown briefly because the town hall was not intended to be a candidate forum. The slide included the Rally for the Rec committee’s preferred candidates:
It was never meant to be a comprehensive list of all candidates. The committee encourages the community to learn about all candidates and consider their perspectives as the district moves forward, particularly since one candidate has already publicly stated they do not support the district and will be voting no!
All applicants must be considered as per labor law, but no RFR committee member has expressed interest in a Director position.
Theoretically yes, but they would have to resign as a Commissioner.
The property tax relief we mentioned is what is already available through San Juan County.
Yes, qualifying seniors and people with disabilities are eligible for exemptions from all regular property tax levies, including a Parks & Recreation District levy. Here’s how it works, based on Washington State law and San Juan County Assessor guidelines:
If voters approve the 37 cent levy rate, that rate will be applied to 2026 assessed property values to calculate the maximum levy revenue that can be collected by Lopez Rec. By law, that levy revenue can only increase by 1% annually (which is why levy rates go down when assessed values increase).
The District can collect less levy revenue than is first established – this is called banking capacity (the legal term for collecting less levy revenue than what is approved by voters) and is a tool available to all taxing districts. It can’t, however, collect more than the 1% increase allowed by law.
The first two primary partnerships that are central to the vision of Lopez Rec are with the Lopez Island School District and the Lopez Island Family Resource Center. LISD will receive funding for school sports and will make their facilities available for Lopez Rec use when not in use by students. LISD has also expressed interest in providing office space for Lopez Rec, access to school facilities such as the culinary room, the art room which has pottery wheels and kiln, and the wood shop for community classes as well as regular classrooms for adult ed evening classes in English, Spanish, technology, etc.. Lopez Rec will partner with the LIFRC to provide after-school and summer programming which is currently funded by the federal 21st Century Learning Grant that expires in 2027.
Lopez Rec also envisions partnering with The Pack to fund and ensure middle school, club and community sports that are currently funded and insured by The Pack. The Lopez Island Historical Society and Museum has expressed an interest in partnering to provide historic tours (walking, bicycle, kayak). Many other organizations, including those that have endorsed Lopez Rec such as Lopez Fit, LIPTSA, Lopez Children’s Center, have offered ideas for partnership that we hope to pursue.
Individuals who want to offer activities can partner with Lopez Rec to access insurance, registration software and a digital brochure, training and access to facilities. Again, the commissioners will set up a standard application process for locals looking to offer programming and set up agreements for disbursement of participation fees (often 80% to program leaders and 20% to the Rec District to cover costs).
Local businesses can also offer classes through Lopez Rec and will benefit from Lopez Rec tax dollars staying on Lopez.
The golf course and the pool are private facilities with private funding for maintenance. The tennis courts are school property that are maintained by LICTA at no cost to the school under an agreement. Please refer to the Statement from FLIP on our website. We’ve also written a Rally Rundown that answers someone’s question regarding whether we intend to buy real estate, and it also discusses upkeep of shared community resources – which again are not private facilities!
The golf course and the pool are private facilities with private funding for maintenance. The tennis courts are school property that are maintained by LICTA at no cost to the school under an agreement. Please refer to the Statement from FLIP on our website. We’ve also written a Rally Rundown that answers someone’s question regarding whether we intend to buy real estate, and it also discusses upkeep of shared community resources – which again are not private facilities!
Island residents who do not pay property taxes contribute indirectly through their rent as landlords typically include property tax costs in their monthly rent. They also contribute through any participation fees which are determined by the commissioners.
Of the organizations mentioned, the Rally for the Rec committee has been in touch with YCC regarding programming and we hope and expect YCC to seek Lopez Rec funding and look for opportunities for collaboration. No formal agreements are in place with the Land Bank, San Juan County Parks or BLM at this time but as a committee we think partnering with them to provide programming on Lopez Island is a great idea!
Public dollars must be allocated following Washington State RCWs, including legally defined separations of church and state.
Check out the library’s website for that information – $0.48 per thousand.
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