Whitfield, Dalton could merge rec departments

Starting Jan. 1, 2013, Dalton and Whitfield County could have a combined parks and recreation department. The City Council and Board of Commissioners are discussing merging the two departments as part of their talks on how to divide the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST).

The two sides are still far apart on how much of the actual tax revenue each government should get, but officials say there’s more agreement on other details, such as merging the two recreation departments.

“We are really there. We’ve agreed to the governing and to the funding,” said Dalton Mayor David Pennington.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Babb agrees that the two governments have agreed on a basic outline of how the merger would work.

“We would just put into the coffers what we are currently putting in, and the city would put in what they are currently putting in. Everyone is in agreement we should be able to run it for that amount of money. We don’t anticipate adding anything to it immediately,” he said. “We would still hold title to all county facilities. The city would hold title to all city facilities. We’d have an appointed recreation authority to oversee the running of the department.”

Dalton Parks and Recreation currently has a budget of $2.5 million and 38 full-time employees and 134 part-time employees, counting Nob North Golf Course and the Dalton-Whitfield Senior Center, which is operated by the department. Whitfield County Parks and Recreation has current annual budget of $970,000 and eight full-time employees and nine part-time employees.

Babb said it shouldn’t take any state legislation to merge the two departments.

“We could do that by ourselves,” he said.

A committee appointed by the General Assembly to study a possible merger of the two governments recommended earlier this year that the two governments merge their parks and recreation departments.

Dalton Recreation Director Steve Card and Whitfield County Recreation Director Brian Chastain briefed that commission on merger possibilities last fall, and the two say they’ve had numerous follow up conversations since

“We have both come to an agreement that this is something that could happen and could benefit this community. It would allow us to better utilize all our facilities and open our programming up across the county,” Card said. “It has been a very positive conversation between the two rec programs. We are just trying to get all of the details finalized, everything from staff placements to rules and regulations. Once we get that final for-sure word this is going to happen, we’ll be able to roll out a final detailed plan, not only for the commission and the council but for the public as well. We want this to be as transparent as possible if we move into this process.”

Card and Chastain says that if the two governments do agree to the merger they could be ready to put everything together by Jan. 1, 2013.

“Basically, the first big things we would hit would be spring baseball and softball,” Card said.

The county recreation department currently relies heavily on volunteers and local athletic associations to run its youth programs, and Chastain says he has already been talking to officials with those leagues about the impact of any merger.

“We would become a full-service rec department like the city is. Obviously, there would still be a big need for volunteer coaches and assistant coaches. But their role with collecting money, running the concession stands, managing the money and things like that would go away,” he said. “That would be managed by the authority.”

But both Chastain and Card say they don’t want teams and leagues to lose their identities.

“What we are basically looking at is that you will sign up and play in the district you go to school in. We were going to transition to that in basketball season this year anyway,” Chastain said. “We may run into situations where some of the schools may not form a team in a certain age group. We’ll just put them together into whichever middle school they would fall under.”

Of course those plans all depend upon what the Board of Commissioners and City Council decide to do.

The merger commission also recommended that the two governments merge their public works departments and law enforcement patrol services. But commissioners and council members say merging those departments isn’t currently on the table.

“We are not sure there is anything to be saved by merging the policing systems, and then you’ve got a question about what level of service each side expects,” Babb said about merging the police functions.

And both sides say the two public works departments are so different it may not make sense to merge them

“Anything can be combined when you are a county as small as ours,” Pennington said. “But we basically went out of the paving business four years ago. And that’s all they do. They don’t do the garbage and brush pickup that our public works department does. Paving and roadwork needs to be outsourced anyway.”

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Whitfield, Dalton could merge rec departments

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