Pool plan: Study planned so finances don’t sink

Enough swimmers and sunbathers must go to a new Greenwood aquatic center to pay its expenses, or else the city can’t afford to operate it, according to the controller who oversees the city’s finances.

Greenwood plans to hire a consultant to study what features a new aquatic center must have in order to attract enough visitors to pay the bills. The Greenwood City Council asked controller Adam Stone to hire a professional firm to do a study of what pool amenities people would actually be willing to pay to use.

The most recent study eight years ago found that about 95 percent of residents weren’t willing to pay more than $5 to visit a new pool, council member Bruce Armstrong said. The problem is, the same study found that a new aquatic center would require a daily admission fee of $7 to cover operating costs.

Greenwood has to make sure that a new aquatic center brings in enough from user fees such as daily admission to pay expenses such as lifeguard salaries, Stone said.

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