At the Town budget kickoff workshop meeting, the Londonderry Town Council and Budget Committee heard from Recreation Director, Art Psaledas.
“Our rec budget is increasing and the reasons for this, it’s a fairly simple one, we have an aging system,” he said.
The proposed budget as of now is $ 273,122.00 – which is $33,469 more compared to the FY 25 budget of $239,653.
It was also noted that the proposed budget is $17,370 more than the Default Budget as of now.
Psaledas explained that the West Road facility opened in 2002, which was 22 years ago.
It was pointed out by Psaledas that this past year they have had six breaks for the irrigation, and they also had to replace the control panel noting that it lasted longer than it was supposed to.
Psaledas also explained that the tennis courts haven’t been resurfaced in eight years.
“We have put that on the backburner,” he said.
Psaledas also said they have seen an increase for the number of participants in baseball, softball, and soccer.
“Soccer now has 900 kids playing,” he said.
Psaledas said that they are also looking to re-strip the lines for the parking lot saying that the estimate for it is about $5,000. He said that they haven’t done it in six years.
“We’re asking for money to try to maintain what we have,” Psaledas said.
Psaledas also noted that they save an estimated $40,000 to $50,000 each year for servicing the fields with volunteers.
“We need to maintain it so we don’t lose it,” he said.
Psaledas also explained that now that they have an assistant recreation in place, they have increased their number of programs. “He’s done a bang up job,” Psaledas said.
“They’ve been extremely well received by the town,” Psaledas said about the recreation programs.
Town Council Vice Chair, Ted Combes, asked for them to be able to come front of them at some point to discuss everything they would like to see fixed or improved at the facilities.
Another increase Psaledas pointed to is 10% for salaries mainly due to having an additional counselor for summer programming and for additional hours for maintenance.
Finance Director, Justin Campo, said they added an additional counselor that will be added to the budget.
“For safety reasons, we needed an additional counselor,” Campo said.
Campo also explained that they have been discussing the possibility of moving recreation programs to a revolving fund so taxpayers as a whole wouldn’t be responsible for paying for it and instead would depend on those who participate in the programs. Campo said the one thing they need to be cautious of is it being self-sustaining.