Over many years, the District has been over collecting from its parcel owners and has built up a sizeable excess fund balance in what is called its Community Services Fund (this fund receives the Recreation Fee charged to parcel owners). Community Services includes all District recreational venues such as Diamond Peak, the golf courses, tennis center, recreation center and until this year, all of the parks. The District has two fees; the Recreation Fee and the Beach Fee. Only parcels with beach access are charged the Beach Fee. The Beach Fund supports the financial needs of all three beaches and is budgeted and managed completely separate from the Community Services Fund, in part due to the beach deed.
For many years, a total fee of $830 was charged to parcel owners for both the Recreation and Beach Fees. This amount has resulted in many years of overcollection of unneeded funds from parcel owners due to the retirement of a number of bonds, the financial performance of Diamond Peak and expenses falling short of budgeted amounts (over budgeting). The combined fee was reduced over the past couple of years, with this year’s reduction being the largest. Why? Because the fund balance has continued to grow. This growth has been due to the performance of Diamond Peak, operational expenses being lower than the budget (over budgeting) and the inability to deliver capital improvement projects as quickly as anticipated. Therefore, the Community Services Fund needs no Recreation Fee to cover the cash flow and therefore was eliminated (reduced to zero). The Beach Fund needs a fee of $455 per parcel to cover its cash flow needs for operations and the planned improvements to the Incline Beach House.
The fee charged per parcel for the 2023-24 fiscal year is $455 per parcel, down from $780, for parcels with beach access and $0 for parcels without beach access. This means punchcards for parcels with beach access have a value of $91 per card (1/5th of $455). Last year, punch cards had a value of $156 (1/5th of $780). While this year’s $91 value reduces the number of adult beach guests a punch card will cover at a cost of $16/per adult from 9 down to 5, the beach guest fees for the 4 additional people is $64.
The fees are evaluated each year based on the operational financial needs of the District, planned capital improvement projects and the potential for bonding of the large projects.