District rec. board approves budget

The Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Recreation Board approved its budget Tuesday night.

The board, which is made of members from the Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees, approved the budget in a meeting prior to the school board meeting. The budget is based on collections from a 1 mill levy imposed by the board, which will result in $904,832 in revenue this year.

A few district positions are covered through recreation board expenditures, including the district athletic trainer, summer weight room trainer, the manager and staff at the Green River High School Aquatics Center. The Aquatics Center’s operations are also funded through the mill levy. This year, those expenditures are anticipated to cost $548,200.

Another $165,219 of one-time expenditures is budgeted for the fiscal year. Projects listed in the budget include $30,281 for GRHS Theatre lighting, which brings the total amount spent for those improvements to $200,665. The board also budgeted $45,726 for playground wood chips, $29,100 for a basketball court at Lincoln Middle School and $22,278 for new concession stand sinks. GRHS activities will receive $20,000, while the Green River Grapplers is budgeted to receive $1,464. City of Green River swim lessons and its summer day camp are budgeted to receive $7,369 and $9,000 respectively.

The board’s undesignated cash reserve is listed at $493,362.

The amount budgeted for the Aquatics Center’s operations is $20,491 lower than its first year of operations during the 2015-2016 fiscal year. According to Pete Brandjord, district business manager, while the utilities to the center are still high, other supplies for the center are more predictable. According to Brandjord, during the first year the Aquatics Center was open, the district wasn’t able to predict what should be budgeted for the center. However, the district has since been able to manage costs for the center, allowing the district to budget less than that first year.

“We can continue to tighten it up,” Brandjord said about the center’s budget.