Details lacking on requested $1.2 million hike for Hilton Head rec center

Hilton Head town staff and Island Recreation Association officials have yet to provide details on major parts of a proposed $1.2 million increase for a recreation center expansion project — weeks after a Town Council member first raised questions.

Council member Kim Likins again voiced concerns Tuesday at a budget workshop about the requested budget hike for fiscal 2018, which starts July 1. The request includes a collective $405,000 in funds for a pool dome and playground surface, items that Likins contends were first approved in February 2014 as part of a master plan for the recreation center project, pegged currently at about $12 million.

“I don’t understand,” Likins said Wednesday. “I want to figure out why these items are on here.”

Construction at the center, located at 20 Wilborn Road on the island’s north side, is underway; and the expanded building is set to open in May 2018.

The town owns the building. The nonprofit recreation association, which is the town’s recreational arm, operates the center.

Town staff and recreation officials said during Tuesday’s meeting that the master plan Likins referred to was “conceptual” and has changed many times since approved in 2014.

But neither town staff nor recreation officials could provide specifics on how the master plan changed, or details about the proposed expenditures for the pool dome and playground surface, when asked Wednesday and Thursday by The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.

Town manager Steve Riley declined comment, saying he needed to research the matter further.

Likins presented documents at Tuesday’s budget workshop that she said shows that the Town Council, in approving the master plan for the recreation center project in 2014, included funding for the pool dome and playground surface.

“I asked (town) staff to provide me the details of what we voted on (in 2014),” Likins said at the meeting. “This document is what was given to me by staff this past week.”

Alan Perry, the Island Recreation Association president, told the newspapers Thursday that there was nothing improper about the requested $1.2 million increase.

“This is not double dipping,” he said. “The docs (that Likins cited at Tuesday’s meeting ) are not clear on what transpired.”

Perry said the town, not his organization, is in charge of the expansion project, noting, “They control the bidding and the contractors.”

As for the master plan, Perry said, “There was a lot of back and forth in the recommendations of what we should have.”

Frank Soule, the association’s executive director, said Thursday the process has been a lengthy one.

“We didn’t finalize the project as a whole until October (2016),” he said.

But when asked, Soule or Perry couldn’t provide details about the requested $405,000 increase for the pool dome and playground surface.

The proposed $1.2 million hike also includes $325,000 for IT equipment and $250,000 for fitness equipment.

Likins said she is concerned by the request as a whole.

“When I was first on council, the first meeting I ever chaired was public facilities,” she said. “The rec center plan was coming forward. The professional consultants we had paid to do it said fundraising (by the recreation association) was easily a component.”

Yet, so far, the town has been covering all of the project costs, Likins said.

Soule said a private fundraising campaign is underway.

“We have been reaching out to several civic groups and asking them to be a part of the fundraising effort,” he said. “We have been talking about a campaign since 2010.”

A public campaign will be launched in the near future, Soule said, though he was unable to provide a date.

The project will expand the current center from 14,000 square feet to 22,000 square feet, Soule said. It will include the addition of a second gymnasium, a walking deck, child care and community meeting rooms, and renovations of the center’s pool area, he said.

It is possible the expanded center will have to delay its opening if the town does not approve the $1.2 million request, Perry said.

More discussion on the request is likely to occur during the Town Council’s next meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Town Hall, One Town Center Court.

Likins said she is not necessarily going to vote against the request.

“I want to know and understand that this was all planned, and that we know we need all this equipment,” she said. “If this is the best thing for the community, sure, I am fine, but I need to know that.”

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 5:38 PM with the headline "Details lacking on requested $1.2 million hike for Hilton Head rec center."