Park Board Approves New Budget
April Ellis
Herald Staff
The Anderson-Dean Community Park Board met Monday, March 8, at noon at the Lions Club Pavilion Center to approve next year’s budget with revenues and expenses balancing at $630,700.
New to this year’s budget is $70,000 revenue from baseball tournaments that the park will host and retain the profits from instead of only renting the fields, as done in previous years. Park Director Jeremy Turpin said revenues from the tournaments were estimated low so rainouts wouldn’t negatively impact what had been budgeted.
Some of the line items highlighted were maintenance and repairs which was budgeted at $20,000 versus last year’s $15,000 and athletic field maintenance at $23,000 versus last year’s $15,000.
Turpin and Project Coordinator Don Wilburn both explained the amount of work that needed to be done to repair safety fencing and drainage issues around the fields, especially the softball fields.
Wilburn said rain waters are not properly diverted from the parking lot to the fields and work needs to be done to prevent the runoff from standing on the fields and causing tournament cancellations. Turpin said 50,000 pounds of brick dust has been ordered to help rebuild the infields and while the goal is to have four to six inches of brick dust, he hoped to build it to three to four inches this year and continue the work next year.
