Lake Casitas User Fees To Increase

$800,000 deficit prompts rise in recreational fees

By Daryl Kelley
Faced with a burgeoning budget deficit, directors of the Lake Casitas Recreation Area voted this week to hike an array of fees charged to customers at their popular lakeside camping grounds and water park.
Beginning Sept. 2, the fee for a vehicle to enter the park off Baldwin Road will increase from $8 to $10 and charges for a camp site will jump from $19 every day to $25 for weekdays and $30 for weekends and holidays.
The charge to launch a boat will also escalate from $7 a day to $10, while the basic charge to hook up a recreational vehicle to drinking water and electricity will jump from $30 to $35 and $40, depending on time of week.
For kids, the popular Water Adventure summer water park remains affordable. A season pass will increase from $70 to $75, and daily entry will stay the same at $12. Daily fees for kayaks will remain a bargain at $3, with annual passes still costing just $30.
“I hope we’re not shooting ourselves in the foot,” said director Bill Hicks. “There is an elasticity in the demand (if the rates go too high). The thing that bothers me the most are the tents: Those usually are people who can’t afford it.”
But Steve Wickstrum, general manager of Casitas Municipal Water District, which operates the park, said the district had no choice. Facing an $800,000 deficit in an annual Recreation Area budget of about $3.5 million, the district can cover about $400,000 of that red ink by slashing overhead expenses and hiking fees, he said.
The remaining $400,000 deficit will have to be made up with a transfer from district reserve accounts or the district’s general fund, which is supported by water customer fees and property taxes.
The Recreation Area, which has always made money, is facing a large deficit for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, which began this month, because for the first time accountants deducted about $600,000 in depreciation costs from its net profit. That depreciation must be set aside to cover costs of maintaining the park’s attractions in future years.
Without the depreciation write-down, the park made a profit of about $200,000.
District directors said at a hearing Tuesday that their goal remains for the Recreation Area to be self-supporting. And they were bothered by the deficit.
“That $400,000 deficit is not theory, it’s reality … How am I supposed to get my arms around this $400,000 deficit,” Director Russ Baggerly asked Wickstrum.
But Wickstrum said Recreation Area labor and overhead expenses have been cut to the bone in the new budget, and that Casitas might price itself out of the market if fees were raised higher than the board has now approved.
“I think we’ve gone about as far as we can on these fees,” Wickstrum said.
For example, Casitas’ daily vehicle fees of $15 on weekends will be higher than the $10 charged at Lake Piru, $11 at Castaic Lake and $8 at Lake Cachuma, and weekend tent campsites will also cost more than at those competing lakes. Daily boat fees will be about the same as competitors’.
Wickstrum said, however, that there are other unknowns about balancing the budget, even with the fee increases.
He said the soaring cost of fuel could keep visitors home and that restrictions on the use of boats at Lake Casitas, because of the threat of contamination by migrating quagga mussels, could reduce revenue, although it hasn’t so far.
The biggest source of the Recreation Area’s $3.5 million in revenue each year is boat fees, providing about $1.5 million, while ticket sales at the water park account for $650,000. Daily vehicle visits provide about $500,000, and camping $150,000. A sharp drop in any of those areas would cripple the budget.
“I think this is something we’re going to have to closely monitor,” said Director Pete Kaiser.
A positive, Wickstrum said, is that future recreation area budgets will not be so affected by depreciation write-offs. This year’s budget took a hit because depreciation had not been adequately covered in the past, he said.
The Recreation Area is open from sunup until sundown seven days a week all year long.
In other action Tuesday, Casitas directors moved to allow kayaks and canoes greater access to the lake despite a ban on outside watercraft unless they meet strict standards to prevent mussel infestation.
The board approved five methods by which kayak owners may access the lake, while assuring their craft have not been used in other lakes.
Owners may store kayaks at the lake for a small fee, $1 per foot of craft length per month. They may use district-approved tags and cables to attach the craft to a trailer, a wheeled carrier or another kayak, so any unapproved use could be detected because the lock tag would be destroyed when the craft is detached.
Or, under a method devised by Oak View resident Steve Grumette, the kayaker or canoeist could attach the craft to the roof of his car via a PVC pipe-and-cable rack. Grumette, a 35-year kayaker, said he would produce the roof rack-and-lock mechanism for $50 to $70 each.
“Once it’s publicized there’s an unknown number of kayakers out there who’ll be interested,” said Grumette, a professional filmmaker who is also artistic director of the Ojai Film Festival.
“There are many who don’t want their kayaks stored at the lake, where they are short of room, or don’t want to have it lock to their cars,” he said. “So this would work for them.”