More than $1.5 million in new programs, including expanding the KIDCO after-school program by cutting back park user fees, are being proposed by Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal.
Leal wants to provide all 575 children currently on KIDCO's waiting list with a site for the city-run after-school program. He also wants to roll back most of the park and recreation fee increases enacted in 2002 to bridge budgets gaps that year.
Fees for the zoo, baseball and KIDCO itself would not be rolled back under a proposal the City Council will discuss during its study session today. Other fees, such as those at swimming pools and for swimming lessons and other recreation activities, would go back to 2002 levels.
Leal said the changes in KIDCO, which would cost about $188,000, and the knockdown of park fees, costing about $519,000, are critical to assist low-income people who have been "under duress and hardship for some time and need relief."
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KIDCO serves nearly 2,000 children after school this year, and it is a first-come first-served program, said Midge Irwin, the east district supervisor for the parks and recreation department. It costs $50 per semester and $75 for the summer, after being a free program only four years ago.
Along with the revival of three job programs that Leal is requesting, the total for his requests is $1.53 million.
Leal wants $500,000 for Job Path, a job placement service, $190,000 for a school jobs program at Sunnyside and Desert View high schools, and $130,000 for a work readiness program at Pueblo High School.
Leal, a Democrat from Ward 5, said residents have been "laboring under the hardship of doing without those things for five years" since they were last funded in 2000, and they need these programs back.
He said the actual funding for these programs would not take place until next fiscal year, which begins July 2006, and would be paid for with some of the $9 million in extra revenue that the city is estimating for the fiscal 2006-07 year.
One council member, Independent Carol West, said she disapproved of spending money on all of these programs, including KIDCO and rolling back the park fees.
West said the park fees are already low, and don't pay even a third of the cost of administering the services provided. She said the fees should stay the same.
On KIDCO, West said the city needs to examine whether it is still meeting the needs of the community, and take stock of what other after-school programs are available. In addition, she said, other organizations, such as churches, ought to step up and do their part.
"To think we can run all these programs for nothing is just not realistic," West said.
West said the extra $9 million is a one-time increase, not a permanent increase as she said Leal is treating it.
"We need to keep the fees where they are now," West said. "We have lots of needs and not a lot of money."
Leal said he wants to make it easier for low-income residents to avoid paying the full KIDCO fees by simply exempting those students who qualify for free lunches.
Irwin, of parks and recreation, said currently, low-income residents can receive a 90 percent reduction — to $10 a year — if they provide the city with information about their household size and income. They do not have to provide documentation, she said.
