City officials starting early on summer hiring for 3 pools

Dec. 23—Decatur officials are getting an early start on hiring lifeguards, hoping to avoid the staffing shortages that hampered the city's three pools over the past two summers.

The pools at Point Mallard Park, the Aquadome and Carrie Matthews Recreation Center were shut down by the pandemic in 2020 except for some fitness activities at the Aquadome and haven't had enough lifeguards or other seasonal workers since.

The city is now taking lifeguard applications for 2023 and has training scheduled to begin in February, Stephanie McClain, supervisor of Point Mallard, told the city Parks and Recreation Board at its December meeting.

She asked the board to help get the word out to prospective employees. She's trying to avoid the hiring problems that forced the city to cut back on pool hours, close some attractions and delay opening the past two summers.

"I need help," McClain said. "I need help reaching those teenagers all the way up through teachers and whoever you know ... . We want to be able to run all of the facilities at a larger capacity for people to come and enjoy."

McClain said they're "trying to get way, way ahead" on hiring, and she met last week with lifeguard instructors to set up the first training classes.

"The potential lifeguards can start working (at the Aquadome)," she said. "We have our crew working with them on basic strokes and letting them practice so, by the time summer comes around, their skills are very good."

McClain said they've reached out to coaches, JROTC instructors "and anyone we know. If you want to give us contacts, we'll be glad to make those phone calls."

The city typically needs to hire 400 to 450 seasonal employees, including about 140 lifeguards. Most of the park's seasonal employees work in concessions, maintenance, the administrative office and the gift shop.

The city had as many as 90 lifeguards at one point last season but operated with about 80 for most of the summer. Point Mallard had to change its hours and close attractions at times during the season due to the shortage.

Parks & Recreation Director Jason Lake said the department increased pay for pool workers last year in an effort to attract more employees. Lifeguard pay is now $12 to $13.50 an hour while concessions, gift shop and maintenance employees make $10.50 to $13 an hour.

Lake said Point Mallard's pay is in line with other water parks.

"They're not going to go to Cullman and make a ton more money," Lake said. "The kids that aren't working is not because of the pay. Point Mallard needs to be the cool place to work again."

Councilman Carlton McMasters, the council liaison to the Parks & Recreation Board, said many of today's parents don't expect their teenagers to work during summers.

"You can't pay them 20 bucks an hour to get them to work," McMasters said.

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Budgeting change

The city's Point Mallard operation, which includes the campground and golf course as well as the water park, is under less pressure this year to break even financially.

Lake said the city has changed the way it manages Point Mallard's finances. Parks & Recreation took over Point Mallard operations in 2006 and first broke even in 2010 after years of financial losses. The park then consistently made money until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the water park to close for the summer in 2020.

The City Council in September changed Point Mallard from operating in an enterprise fund, where the park is expected to be financially self-sufficient, to the general fund where the financial expectations aren't as high, Lake said.

Lake said Point Mallard should be viewed in the same way as Wilson Morgan Park and Jack Allen Athletic Complex, which are not expected to finish in the black every year.

"Taking it out of the enterprise fund means it's a quality-of-life park and I think that's smart," Lake said.

The Tennessee Valley Authority leases the Point Mallard property to the city and, if the park doesn't make money, TVA requires the city to supplement any losses.

"It can't operate at a deficit," McMasters said. "I advocated pulling it out of the enterprise fund. When you're dealing with a taxpayer-funded park, if you make money that's great, but, at the end of the day for me, it's a quality-of-life thing. I want our residents to go enjoy it. I want it to be accessible to all people.

"We do stuff to make it happen, and sometimes we operate at a loss. It's a fine line of don't let it be a vacuum of taxpayer dollars but we don't want to raise (water park) rates to $80 a visit so we're just inflating profits and it's not accessible to residents."

Lake said last year's rate increase on park tickets was the first since 2013. — Carrie Matthews and Aquadome

The lifeguard shortage caused the most severe problems at the Carrie Matthews pool in Northwest Decatur. Lake shortened the season to just a few weeks in each of the last two summers.

For the past several years, lifeguards have not been assigned to a specific pool. Lake said this worked well when they were fully staffed, but not so well as they struggle to hire enough people.

"The way it has always been is Point Mallard has always been the priority. The city puts so much money in to make it operate," Lake said, so the shortage of lifeguards has had a disproportionate impact on Carrie Matthews and the Aquadome.

Lake said this year he's assigning one group of lifeguards exclusively to Carrie Matthews and the Aquadome, and the other group to Point Mallard. He said he hopes to hire 16 lifeguards for Carrie Matthews/Aquadome only, eliminating the rotation that includes Point Mallard.

Lake said the change is so Carrie Matthews and the Aquadome "have a great chance of being open. If we get to the point where Point Mallard doesn't have enough guards, we're not going to pull from that 16. The hope is those 16 guards keep everything running and we don't have to worry about those two pools."

Board member Misti Palmer said Parks & Rec should promote "how well you work with athletes and their schedules. Y'all are great working with the kids, and they need to know that up front."

Parks & Recreation Board chairman Shane Stewart suggested McClain talk to local church youth groups, and board member Zac Cameron added that Young Life, a group of Christian teenagers, might be an option.

"Other than youth church groups and schools, I don't know where else you can get to the kids," Stewart said.

Applications are available at PointMallardPark.com. Call 256-341-4902 for more information.

— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432. Twitter @DD_BayneHughes.