The Beach Reporter - 11-28-19
The BCHD board of directors assert that in the next 15 years in order to continue to provide the current level of services to the community, a new Healthy Living Campus must be developed at the cost of $530 million. But this over the top plan to keep popular programs functioning is unnecessary overkill.
When we think of BCHD, the Life Span Services are the programs and services that we see implemented in our community. They include direct grants to organizations, youth services, Blue Zones, volunteer programs, school programs, research and other community services. The 2018 cost of these programs was $4 million, just slightly above the revenue received from local property taxes. The other popular program is the Fitness Center/Adventure Plex costing $3.3 million in 2018 and which was almost entirely covered by revenue from user fees. These two programs account for $7.3 million out of a budget of nearly $14 million. The balance of $6.5 million is spent on administrative services and property operations. This amounts to 46% of the budget expenditures. The general non profit expenditure standard is a ratio of 80% expenditures on grants to the community and 20% spent on administrative expenses.
The realistic solution is for the BCHD board of directors to adopt the non profit 80/20 standard practice and reduce administrative and property operation costs to 20% of the total budget. This over-development is completely unnecessary and should be vigorously opposed by Redondo Beach residents.
—Sheila Lamb, Redondo Beach
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