Parks and Rec Fees
The City implemented fees at Lawrence recreation centers starting in January, in spite of strong community opposition. Over 3,800 residents signed the No Fees for Lawrence Rec Center petition, the most signatures we’ve ever seen on a local petition, and over 2,000 survey respondents (82% of all respondents) opposed these fees.
In December, 2025, in an effort to reverse these feeds, Commissioner Mike Courtney presented a proposal for increasing Parks & Rec funding based on the City's own Parks & Rec Master Plan's many suggestions for cost savings and revenue generation, but his proposal was not adopted by the City Commission.
Expected Memberships The City is expecting to issue 3,000 memberships this year —2,250 paid memberships and 750 free ones for youth and low-income individuals. Last year, about 13,000 unique visitors used our City’s recreation centers (pg 5), so the City is expecting 10,000 fewer people (1/10th of Lawrence) to use our recreation centers this year.
Expected Revenue The City budgeted to bring in $450,000 from these fees, but we don’t believe this math adds up. Most passes are between $80-$120 a year, which means the City would need over 4,000 people to sign up to reach their financial goals.
January Data The Lawrence Parks & Rec department recently released data from their first month of membership sales. While they claim to have passed their goal of 2,250 paid memberships, they are counting each monthly membership as one membership, and they have only brought in $182,000 of the expected $450,000.
We believe that lumping annual and monthly passes together in the City's data is misleading. If one person bought a monthly pass for 12 months, that would be counted as 12 memberships. If all 2,250 memberships the City is anticipating selling were monthly passes, that would only equal about 200 residents buying passes. At an average of $12/month, this would only bring in $27,000 of the $450,000 the City is hoping to generate with these fees
Learn more at the LJWorld article, which includes lots of graphs, and The Lawrence Times article on the presentation before the City Commission.
More Info on Parks & Rec Fees!
Proposal to fund Parks & Rec without recreation facility fees, by Commissioner Mike Courtney
Lawrence residents to start paying for rec center access as city faces budget deficit, KSHB 41
What to know about Lawrence rec center access fees by Mackenzie Clark, The Lawrence Times
Lawrence city commissioners voted to implement rec center fees. Some believe they broke a promise. by Cuyler Dunn, The Lawrence Times
82% of Survey Respondents Oppose Rec Center Fees by Carol Kummer in The Lawrence Times
No Fees for Lawrence Rec Centers petition - 3,817 signatures and counting!
