1. The joint-use agreement is based on the principle that (in order to maximize the use of our respective facilities during non-peak periods, to recognize that these facilities are a resource to serve the community, and to respond to the fact that the cost of operating these facilities is largely paid by the same taxpayer) the City will not charge a rental fee to the School Boards for their programs when they occur in specified civic recreational facilities during school-hours. In return, the School Boards will not charge a rental fee to the community associations who use their neighbourhood schools during the evenings on school-days. (See Section 8 of the agreement between the City and the Catholic School Board.) Recently, the Public School Board began to charge rental fees on the community associations when the schools are used for adult programs. Because this action is contrary to a basic principle which underlies the proposed joint-use agreement, the City is being questioned as to why it has not responded by charging its rental fees on the Public School Board when it uses civic facilities.
2. The Public School Board is prepared to considered signing an agreement with the City if the City agrees to subsidize or to assume the Board's costs of additional programs and services. In effect, the question that is being asked of City Council is how much is it willing to pay to "buy" a joint-use agreement with the Public School Board?
3. The Public School Board, like the City, is facing financial pressures and is looking for other sources of revenue. While the City understands this problem, it has supported the community associations' position (i.e. that they should not be charged a rental fee) because adult programs are the primary revenue-generators for the associations' operations, including the subsidization of their programs for children and the acquisition of assets which are being donated to their local schools (e.g. sports equipment, computers)and are being installed in their local parks (e.g. playground equipment). The School Board has responded to the community associations by attempting to draw the City into the justification of the Board's rental actions. A frequently-used example is that the City charges children to use its facilities, whereas the Public School Board's rental charges apply only to adult programs. This is not a fair comparison because our fees apply to City-wide and suburban facilities (e.g. the leisure centres, district and neighbourhood sportsfields, the Saskatoon Field House, golf courses); there are no charges levied by the City on any users of neighbourhood facilities (e.g. paddling pools, playground programs, neighbourhood parks and ballfields).

RECOMMENDATION: that the information be received.

K. P. Pontikes
Director of Planning and Development

THE CITY OF SASKATOON'S SUPPORT TO NEIGHBOURHOODS
AS PART OF A CONTRIBUTION TO A CITY/SCHOOL BOARDS
JOINT-USE AGREEMENT

a) Community Development (Total: $524,000)

Annual Operating Grant to Community Associations $52,800

Each community association is eligible to receive $1,200 to $1,400 per year to offset the operating costs of their organization.

· Annual Rink Operating Grant and Rink Improvement Grant $43,400 to Community Associations

Every community association is eligible to receive $1,000 to $2,000 per year, depending on the number of rinks they operate. The Rink Improvement Grant is provided when needed and under certain guidelines. Ten thousand dollars is available per year for rink improvements.

Volunteer Development $5,600

This component of the Branch's budget involves providing a volunteer conference, executive training, and individual leadership development.

b) Fall and Winter Programs

c) Playgrounds and Paddling Pools (Total: $319,900)

Rental Of Public Schools (Cost to the CitY) $14,500

This amount includes a rental fee for the use of eight public schools, as well as the cost of a caretaker for each. The Leisure Services Department also pays for the on-site installation and use of telephones for the programs. These programs are provide free of charge to all school-age children at the neighbourhood level during the summer when school is out.

d) Youth Centres (Total: $65,600)

· Rental of Public Schools (Cost to the City) $3,400

This amount includes the rental fee to use the public schools. The Leisure Services Department's staff provide janitorial services and pay for the on-site installation and use of telephones.

e) Aboriginal Program (Total: $114,100)

a) Financial Benefits

The schools benefit financially from the work of the community associations who estimate that they contribute, on average, $3,000 to $6,000 per year to the schools in their neighbourhoods. These contributions can be in the form of:

• cash donations,· the purchase of computer equipment and software, camping and field trip sponsorship,· school graduations,· band trips, and fun nights.

Overall, these contributions are estimated to be $126,000 to $252,000 per year; over a five year period, $630,000 to $1,260,000 has been contributed, city-wide, by the community associations to the Public School Board.

The community associations contribute significantly to park enhancements which also benefit the schools at integrated (neighbourhood parks/school grounds) sites. These associations have contributed $98,700 to park enhancements over the past five years. The City has contributed $93,800 to those same projects. Very few of those projects have not been on integrated sites.

Community associations operate approximately 50 outdoor school or community skating rinks. They contribute a minimum of 400 hours of supervised programs per year, city-wide, on this integrated program. The schools utilize the outdoor rinks in their day-to-day activities. The Public School Board pays for the utilities (i.e. electricity and water) for those rinks that are placed on its property next to its schools.

From 1993 to 1994, the community associations spent $64,000 on the operation of outdoor rinks and an additional $34,300 on capital improvements to those rinks.

The community associations provided approximately 700 hours of indoor adult programs in public schools during the fall of 1993 and winter of 1994. A considerable number of additional hours were provided out of the Catholic schools as many community associations moved their adult programs to the Catholic schools, rather than pay the $22 per hour rental fee which was imposed by the Public School Board. However, the Public School Board would have realized approximately $9,400 in revenue from these programs, excluding the 270 hours of adult programming in inner-city schools which have been exempted from this fee.

Many of the Public School Board's Parent Councils are represented formally on their respective community associations. Some of those councils formally presentbudgets and request money directly from their community associations. Many community associations contribute on a regular, on-going basis to support school programs through their parents councils.

b) The Programs' Benefits

· The community associations provided 15,587 hours of after-school programming to neighbourhoods in 1993. These include children's programs, community events, and adult programs.

· At least seven community associations sponsor nutrition programs at the schools through the Child Hunger and Education Program.

· The education process does not end at 3:30 p.m. The community associations   have, as their mandate, to provide educational, recreational, and social opportunities for all residents within their neighbourhoods. They do this by providing programs for their communities. Their neighbourhoods' "community centre" is the elementary school. They feel that they are contributing to the quality of life within their neighbourhoods by providing programs through the school as a "community centre '.

c) Community and School Benefits

· The Leisure Services Department has always considered all schools to be community schools -- a premise which is supported by the community associations. The community associations' programs and volunteers are integrated into elementary schools. Thus, the community continues to be a focus of community development within the Leisure Services Department. This integration of volunteers into the school and the community creates some of the following:

· Children and parents gain a sense of pride in the school facilities.

· The community associations' programs help to support the schools' credibility as community centres.

· It increases the level of trust among the communities' members in the schools as an institution. The use of the schools by the community break down the fear of education and of the schools. This is particularly important among the Aboriginal community.

· It increases the level of pride by the youth within a neighbourhood and therefore, can reduce the incidence of vandalism at the school. Therefore, a sense of ownership in the facility is developed among the residents of all ages.

· It increases the willingness of residents to contribute to the school when it is seen as the focus of the communities' activities.

· Strong community associations make the neighbourhoods more attractive to live in. This supports the school and its population.

· Community associations and their programs encourage all people within a neighbourhood, not just parents of school-age children, to support the schools by providing opportunities within the school for all ages.

· Many people who serve as volunteers to the community associations also get

involved in parent councils and other school-related efforts. These volunteers, trained by the Leisure Services Department through the community associations, benefit the schools' organization as well. Leaders within the school are often leaders within the community.

· The schools benefit from the expertise that the community's volunteers bring to their schools by way of fund-raising, organization and coordination of programs, and better citizenship. Thousands of volunteer hours are contributed annually to the schools and to the communities through the community associations.

· The community associations often assist the schools in recruiting volunteers for the schools' projects.

· The programs of the community association and the Leisure Services Department which are run in the schools have greatly broken down various barriers within the Aboriginal community. The Leisure Services Department's staff attest that there are more Aboriginal children, youth, and parents stepping into the schools than  there were five years ago. Our staff attribute this to neighbourhood-based recreational programs. These community programs assist the Aboriginal people in building self-esteem and in creating trust around the school as an institution. In turn, more Aboriginal children are less fearful of attending school.

· It is difficult to measure the return that the schools receive from the leadership skills that adults and children realize through their involvement in community associations and their programs. However, it is difficult to disagree with thepremise that strong adult role-models will influence the behaviour within the schools and in the classrooms.

· Community-association-sponsored preschool programs are a feeder system for potential kindergarten students. Schools have been known to increase their enrolments significantly from these programs.

· Transportation is an issue for adults as well as for children. Schools are the centre of the neighbourhood. Community-sponsored programs offered at the elementaryschools break down transportation barriers to participation for all ages.

· When the community association does not run adult programs in the school, the principals and teachers never get to know the community leaders within the neighbourhoods. This hinders communication between the school and the community. This could further discourage daytime involvement by adults in the school.

· The community and the school benefit from the educational, social, and recreational opportunities and objectives of the community associations by:·

. enhancing the physical and mental well-being of residents,

· fostering a sense of community belonging,

· contributing to the health and safety of the community,

· contributing to the development of the lifeskills of all ages,

· enhancing active citizenship and assisting in the development of well balanced lifestyles, and

· providing solutions to community problems that affect the school and the community.

Impact on Community Associations

· Community associations strive to keep neighbourhood programs affordable to ensure that cost is not a barrier to participation. Rental fees cause the cost of participation to go up. This prevents some from participating.

· Community associations rely on adult program fees to subsidize their children's recreational and social programs within the neighbourhood and the school (including school functions and park enhancements which also benefit the school).

The rental charge prohibits them from this fund-raising mechanism. Higher fees for adult programs have resulted in participation being down in adult programs. Some community associations have had to cancel a number of adult programs. In those cases, children's program fees have been raised to make up for the lack of subsidization from adult programs. This, in turn, creates fewer child participants.

· The public school's role as the hub of the community or the neighbourhood centre has been eroded. Most community associations have moved their adult programs to the Catholic schools. This, however, is not possible for all community associations and some have had to cancel all of their adult programs. In this situation, adults in the community can not benefit from lifeskill or other recreational programs.

Integrated School Sites

· These sites allow school programming to occur in neighbourhood parks. This minimizes the capital costs (land acquisition and development costs) for the schoolboards and minimizes the operating and maintenance costs to these boards.

· Strategic locations for schools are an important principle in neighbourhood planning and as such, the school boards are represented throughout the land development process.

· The City has 45 integrated sites. The cost to develop a new park is estimated to be $56,000 per acre. New parks are approximately fifteen acres in size, at a cost to the taxpayer of $840,000. This amount is paid by the taxpayer through the prepaid-services levies and affords considerable capital cost-savings to the school boards.

· School facilities have a responsibility to provide sufficient land for open space and expansion. Integrated sites allow the school board to utilize all sportsfields, play apparatus, etc. and do not pay for the maintenance of these facilities.

· The Public School Board saves the cost of 3.9 acres of land each time it builds on an integrated site. It is estimated that over the past 12 years the Public School Board has not had to purchase approximately 22.8 acres of land due to the integrated-site concept, at an estimated cost-saving of $1.5 million (not including the Silverspring site). The integrated sites have also saved the Public School Board substantial amounts both in program design and development costs and in maintenance costs.