The Emporia Recreation Commission may be ending a long-time agreement with Emporia State University regarding the Trusler Sports complex as soon as next month.
The ERC and ESU, along with the city of Emporia, entered into an original agreement for the operation and maintenance of the facility back in 1993. In 2014, the city exited the agreement leaving just the ERC and ESU.
According to Emporia Rec Director Tom McEvoy the ERC has spent between $55,000 to $60,000 a year for utilizing the complex for its summer softball programs. McEvoy says back in 93, there were over 100 teams involved in the softball league, however, in recent years that number has dropped significantly with only five teams currently signed up for this year.
McEvoy says discussions for terminating the agreement have been ongoing the past few years and were recently compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The agreement’s termination will be up for a vote at the ERC’s next meeting in July. If approved the recreation commission will move their summer softball leagues to Santa Fe Park and the upkeep and maintenance of Trusler will lie solely with ESU.
KVOE has reached out to the ESU Athletics Department for comment.
McEvoy’s proposal came as the ERC was set to approve the 2020-21 fiscal year budget for publication Monday evening. The budget has a general fund of just over $4.1 million and McEvoy stated he also increased the budget reserve by 35 percent and added additional funding to the capital outlay budget.
McEvoy says the increases came as he discovered they had “a little more money to play with” than originally anticipated.
McEvoy stated the ERC will be cutting expenses by seven percent for the upcoming year. He says the cut comes as last month’s revenues were down by 85 percent.
McEvoy says he is very confident those numbers will improve, it is just unclear at this time when that will be.
Commissioners approved the budget for publication unanimously.
The Emporia Recreation Commission will hold their next meeting Monday, Jul. 20.
