Off the CUPF: Community Use of Public Facilities

Series 3: CUPF's New Simplified Fee Structure | Discussion and Informative Session

• Derek Ross and Ramona Bell-Pearson • Season 1 • Episode 7

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This podcast episode is a continuation from the previous Episode 6 | Series 2: CUPF's New Simplified Fee Structure. Once again, come join CUPF Director, Ramona Bell-Pearson and Communications and Outreach Specialist, Derek Ross, along with CUPF Financial Administrator, Vanessa Lopez-Cuevas and Operations Manager, Ron Maxson Jr. In this riveting discussion about CUPF's New Simplified Fee Structure, listen as our panel of guests provides useful information explaining the significance of the new fee structure. As we bookmark this discussion, our goal is to make sure the community is aware of all deadlines and implementations of the new fee structure. Thank you for using public facilities for community events and activities!

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Speaker 1

Welcome to Off the Cup a community use of public facilities podcast. We are one of many county government podcasts that focus on sustainability and innovation, all while making sure our community is aware of the services the county provides. Are you looking to reserve an outdoor indoor facility at a library, school or county building? How about the Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza or the Clarksburg Cottage in Montgomery County, maryland? Available venues are here to be reserved and we are the office that can make it happen. We are Cuff and thank you for joining our community podcast.

Speaker 2

Let's get started. I wanted to jump in and we don't have to get too quick, you don't have to get too much into it. But, ron, I'm just bringing this up, all right. Okay, we talked about parking lots. Okay, is there a variation when it comes to reservations and I'm bringing it up because July 15th is opening day reservation Just let everybody know outdoor school facilities, athletic fields, you know, outdoor basketball courts, parking lots, tennis courts, you know all that good stuff. All that good stuff. All right, I'm on ActiveMontgomeryorg, just throwing that out there for everybody, and I see something that I want to reserve. What happens after that? Do I encounter anything, or is it just easy peasy? I could just do that in Montgomery and ready to go? At what point does core services get involved?

Speaker 3

Well, you can do it online, completely self-service, with the exception of you know you're not going to get a confirmation. If you have a large event or an auditorium event or artificial turf reservation, you're going to be able to place that reservation request, but you're not going to get a confirmation until the next business day or maybe the second business day, because we have to verify with the school. Everything else is done online, self-service. You reserve it, you pay for it at checkout and you get a confirmation email. So it's very, very simple, very, very simple. I like that.

Speaker 3

But the dates you know you're going to run into a problem If you try to reserve a date in a different scheduling season. So we have different seasons. For indoor schools it's strictly the school year and then the summer and that's how we break it up. So it's pretty easy. If right now, you decided you wanted to reserve something from June 1st through August 1st, it would give you an error, because the season right now that we're in is going to be focused on getting you through the end of July and August 1st, august 2nd at high schools and probably a couple of middle schools you're not going to be able to get in so that one little date could throw you off At an elementary school. Right now you're in some middle schools. You're not going to be able to get in, so that one little date could throw you off At an elementary school. Right now you're in some middle schools. You can go through the second or the third in August, but it's rare.

Speaker 3

Sometimes, depending on how the school year runs, you may get through August 7th or 8th where we are allowing community use to remain in the building at a school. So there's things that will give you an error and it doesn't always tell you exactly what that error is. So you have to understand those reservations windows and the times that you can and can't reserve. But you can go online, you can see what is available and nine times out of 10, you're going to have a very smooth transaction where it will let you add it to the cart and check out. If you're running into an error, this probably because there's either a date range issue, a time range issue, or maybe just one of those dates is not available. So those are usually the reasons that you'll get some kind of an error message.

Speaker 2

Wow, and I'm just asking this to the whole group of the panel Are there specific dates? That are just the hot dates? Is it July 15th? The hot date is August and I'm bringing it up to August 15th. Opening day reservation. We got a lot of opening day reservations coming up and we want to make sure we get this information out, but we're talking about July 15th right now. Outdoor school facilities, bringing it up, athletic fields, outdoor basketball courts, parking lots, tennis courts, you name it. It's outdoor facilities.

Speaker 1

But when we're talking about those facilities that you would be doing the opening day in July 15th would be for reservations for the period of August 16th through November 30.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 1

So you know, bearing in mind the weather, it's an outdoor facility, so after November 30th it's not going to be available for outdoor activities. So that's why there's a window from August 16th to November 30th and you, you, you, the first time you could reserve, that is July 15th for those periods.

Opening Day Reservations

Speaker 2

Wow, and thank you for bringing that up to Ramona. That's very important. I know we've talked about always kind of doing your own research for planning and getting yourself ready. I'm joking with Ron looking over, I was like what? I just shoot you an email. Of course, services, I just want to do all of this. Can you help me? Can you help me? Or you may want to just do some some research a little bit, if you want to have an event in the fall, or something it may may bring about some different weather.

Speaker 2

I don't know. I don't know, vanessa, I don't want to skip past you because I know that there's so much. Is there something about these opening day reservation dates? I know we talked about it before, but July 15th is coming up, so is this something that you prepare for for finance?

Speaker 4

You know, I think now, since we have everything online and Active Montgomery is working okay, it's everything since it's done online I think it's the only thing that finance does is try to make sure that everybody is able to check out. I know that sometimes the system is a little funny with checking out with your credit card has to match the, the, the billing address on the account, so, just in case anyone runs into that situation, it has to match. So finance is always there to help and help people check out if there's some reason that they can't. But when you talk about, I'm going to hold my comments for the next opening date, the next opening date, I do want to say something and I know you're going to talk about it in a few minutes, so I'm going to reserve my comments for that.

Speaker 2

You're reserving? Yeah, you're reserving, you're reserving. Well, vanessa, you can get into it. I don't want to get too deep into it, but I know that, like I said, we have July 15th opening day. We also have an August 15th opening day reservation. That's more indoor school facilities for days of use during the upcoming MCPS school year. So we're just throwing out dates, you know. Just put them on your calendar, whatever you need to do to keep a track of it. I put them on your calendar and whatever you need to do to keep a track of it. I know I have to put it on my calendar. My memory is not what it used to be, but that's just me. But, vanessa, did you have anything to?

Speaker 2

say about August 15th.

Speaker 4

Well, I do just want to say this thing August 15th is the biggest day of CUF's year. I would say that's our opening day. Ron's going to be able to elaborate more on it, but it's the opening day for indoor reservations for school facilities for the upcoming MCPS school year. So just want to let everybody know that's the day that we receive the most revenue because everybody's online trying to gather the dates that they need and then they're checking out, even though it's not real I mean, it's real revenue, but it's like deferred revenue in the date until the date happens. But just want to let you know that that is our busiest day of the entire year.

Speaker 4

So I think the system starts up at six in the morning, so everybody's ready to go and online. Oh, 630. Apologize, 630. Everybody's online trying to get the dates that they need and it's it's. It's a good day, I think, overall, and there's all hands on deck for Cuff. Everybody's in the office working just trying to make sure that we're there giving good customer service to customers, people that are having issues checking out, people that are trying to figure out why they can't find something. We're all going to be available to be able to help all those individuals that need extra assistance in getting the reservations they need.

Speaker 2

Wow, wow. So August 15th is a hot day. Yes, okay, all right.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and I think it's good to remind everybody that on our website there is a calendar of all of these opening dates and you can not only view that calendar but you can actually download those items onto your mobile phone or into your Google Calendar so that they pop up and they will also download for the years ahead if you've selected that particular item, if we change it for some reason, so let's say, one year we decide to make August 15th, august 14th Not that we would, but if we did, it would automatically update on your phone or on your Google calendar. So those are great things to download and put that on your calendar through that system so that you're always up to date in what's going on.

August 15th: CUF's Biggest Day

Speaker 1

We have had past situations on August 15th which annually is our largest day, as Vanessa said where our virtual platform doesn't always perform as it should. And that's not just for us, because, keep in mind all three agencies, whether it's Parks Montgomery County I'm sorry, yeah Montgomery Parks or Montgomery County Department of Recreation, or CUF All three of us are on the same virtual platform and there have been times when all three of us have had major problems on August 15th or whatever opening go live date, and we have been working diligently with our software company and they have been improving the performance each time. Every time we have a failure, they dig into it, they figure what's going on and there may be a different issue the next time, but rarely do the same failures happen the same year after year. So I feel very confident that it's improving and I hope that the message that our community will get is that we are aware that there have been problems. We hear your complaints and concerns. Yes, we do, and we have been working to improve that.

Speaker 3

And I think the cool thing about that is that it's a blessing and a curse. But the reason we have those problems is because we have the largest community use program in the United States and Canada, all right, so we rent out 17,000 public facilities. Nobody comes close to that. We've we've done surveys and all the large jurisdictions Nobody comes close. So the great thing for Montgomery County residents to know is, yeah, we're letting you use facilities that other jurisdictions would ban you from using.

Speaker 3

But part of that, then the problem we encounter is we can't find software to manage that as best as we would hope. We have tried several vendors. We have interviewed more than a dozen vendors and there's only a handful that even said they could possibly do it and even they have struggled doing it once they get into it. So this vendor is taking us seriously. They are making improvements. As Ramona said, it's getting better and that's a good thing for Montgomery County because we are the leader in community use across the United States. It's a great thing, but it comes with sometimes a little bit of troublesome. I hear that when it comes to software.

Software Challenges and Improvements

Speaker 2

I hear y'all are talking so nice and general about it. That's cool, that's cool, this is awesome, this is awesome. So we're getting ready to finish this up. But before we finish this up, we're going to just, we're going to hand well, you already have a microphone, ron. I was going to say hand you the microphone, you already have one in front of you.

Speaker 2

Ron, let's talk about this simplified fee structure. Let's put it in your hands. Let's hear from the legendary Ron about just everything the simplified fee structure that you would like to talk about. I had stuff like. I know we talked about various categories. I know I mentioned certain utilities, usage of some facilities, but I'm going to step back and I just want to hand this off to you. Just tell us about the fee structure from your opinion.

Speaker 3

Well, I will say the fee structure that we currently have in place is horrible and we acknowledge that. We're not going to sugarcoat that. It's horrible. It's been horrible. I've complained about it more than any customer.

Speaker 3

But the great thing is we're going from seven fee categories with 11 charts to explain those seven fee categories, only in the government. But we have decided to simplify that to three categories and three charts A, b and C Super simple. It's where we wanted to be for a long time but we just got there and that's a great thing because it helps the software run smoother when we reduce complexity in the fees and it helps the customer navigate. It helps the customer know way before they even get involved in running a facility. They know what they're going to pay, they know what category they fall in. We have taken it down to a couple of really very simple outlines of what this should look like. And in the category A is our lowest and in the category A is our lowest and that is focused on before and after school child care vendors, the ones that are selected by MCPS through a bid process, ok, nonprofit cultural schools and government. So those are the three in category A for using school facilities. It's broken down for weekday and then the second column is weekend and holidays. Really simple, each facility type. Category B is the next one and it is for all of our nonprofits. Those are nonprofits that are based in Montgomery County or outside of Montgomery County. All nonprofits right now fall into category B, and then all of our county residents. If you're a county resident doing something, just you know, with an informal group, you can still rent the facilities even though you're not part of a larger organization, and you fall into that category B with the nonprofits. Then the next and third is category C, which is all of our commercial for-profit businesses, and then any resident that is outside of Montgomery County can use our facilities, but they pay a higher rate. So you know A is the lowest, b is the middle and C is the highest. So we've made it very simple. There's not a lot of discussion about who falls into what category. If someone is confused they can certainly call in or email and we will help them, because there's always going to be odd situations and we anticipate that, but we will definitely be able to assist in that.

Speaker 3

Always when you rent a school, there are staff costs involved if you need something extra or if you're there on a weekend. Building services staff sometimes we have kitchen workers necessary if they rent the kitchen. Media services technicians if they need any kind of auditorium facility or even a cafeteria if they need audio or visual assistance. We have user support techs that we use. And then, obviously, security. So those are additional fees per hour and those are clearly noted on our website just to make it really really easy for people to understand what extra fees they might encounter. Some of that will be captured online when you do a reservation and then sometimes we're going to review that reservation and notice that, oh, this needs security or, because they rented the kitchen, we need to make sure that we hire a cafeteria worker to come in and work in the kitchen. So there are a variety of things that we catch by running reports so that we can add onto the permit make sure the staff are available, make sure they show up. We work with the school. We work with food services directly. We work with the central security office to make sure that they have staff if the school isn't able to supply it. So there are a variety of things that we do and we have all that outlined in this fee guide that we have online.

New Simplified Fee Structure

Speaker 3

The big goal was to make it simple and I think we accomplished that. In doing that, we followed the recommendation of our consultant, which was to waive the fees for library meeting rooms. So that's effective for dates of use July 1 forward. The difference there is also that groups are going to be restricted only two uses per month at the same library facility. So it's a little different.

Speaker 3

We're making it free. It's easier, but there's got to be a restriction because obviously there's going to be a lot of people that are going to want to have that, that space for their their meetings, uh, police station meeting rooms. We have two of those, uh, one in Bethesda and the other in the white Oak area. Those will be no fees, uh, just like libraries, and they're going to also be restricted to two uses a month. And then we offer the gray brick and red brick courthouse meeting rooms. Same situation they're going to be free, effective July 1st. Again, with all of these that are free, there's going to be times when you may need some extra staff for cleaning up behind you or security, depending on the type of activity, but we'll walk you through that.

Speaker 1

And those staff and security will be at a charge.

Speaker 3

Exactly, yep, and that will be added to your permit once we review it. And then the regional services centers. They have meeting rooms, quite a variety of meeting rooms, especially in Bethesda and Germantown. There's no change. Those will still be at the same low rates that we've had for quite a number of years and we have a link directly to those fees on our website.

Speaker 3

The Clarksburg Cottage, which is part of the up county regional services center facility. It is in Clarksburg. It is a very small facility. It's got basically just one meeting room to it and one single restroom. That too will maintain the current fee structure.

Speaker 3

We have a gymnasium at the Housing Opportunities Commission. That is a great facility. It is a very small, very old gym but it is available and it's great for smaller youth. They actually are starting to use it more and more every year. There's no change to the existing cleaning and electronic access card fees. The room use fees are still going to be just as they are now. They will be directly aligned with our public school gyms because it's the same basic facility. We in Urban District no change in their fees. Silver Spring Civic Building and Veterans Plaza no change in their fees. At this time. Those will all be reviewed at a later time. Recreation center fields that we have. We have five or six of those fields. They will still continue to be the same as all natural grass fields.

Speaker 3

So all of this is outlined in this fee structure. It sounds like a lot. It's really nice Compared to what we used to have. It's so simple, but we wrote it all down in one place where everybody can see it and everybody can hopefully find it easy to understand, and that has been the real key in simplifying this fee structure. So there's a lot of great things. Another real positive is we have determined that our PTA organizations and our public schools are no longer going to pay fees for room use Again. They may have to have some staff costs if it's necessary, but their room use fees have been waived and that is to align with what we see across the rest of the country. The PTAs are very close partners with our schools and the money that they raise for during their fundraisers are for the students, for the teachers, for the school. It assists MCPS with, with getting equipment, supplies, all kinds of things. So I think that's a real cool upside to the fee structure simplification, wow.

Speaker 2

Wow, that that you know what. When I look at all three of y'all, I can only imagine how many late nights if y'all had thinking about this fee structure. How hard, how much work did y'all put in to do this, Vanessa, I'm hearing all this from Ron and I know we're closing out, but I got to hear from Vanessa and Ramona, Like what is it that Ron is saying? That just just just hits you Like cause I know y'all worked on this. Y'all worked on this. I mean, we were there, you know we were holding hands and clapping it up too, but some of y'all were knee deep in doing all of this great work. So give us something, Vanessa.

Speaker 4

Well, I think that it was a collaboration. I know that we had the fee consultants that did the fee study. They they put in a tremendous amount of work and I really thought that they did an excellent job at looking at other jurisdictions and they were also looking at what we needed in order for us to continue doing business. So I think that, at the end of the day, the the fees, the increase in the fees, is very conservative, based on other jurisdictions, and I feel like, at the end of the day, with all of the customers when they check out, they'll see that there's going to be an increase but it's not going to be so overwhelming. So I do appreciate that we were able to keep the fee structure. Well, we made it better, we clarified it. It's a lot more simpler, but we kept it with very conservative rates. So I think that at the end of the day, everyone's going to be happy and it's going to help us to continue doing business, because without the increase we wouldn't be able to continue having the reimbursement stem to PS paying for our overhead, paying our staff costs and you know, everything is increasing. So we're not the only ones that are having to increase fees, sadly, but I think everybody will be okay and it was going to be much better for the system.

Comparative Fee Analysis

Speaker 4

As Ron mentioned, the system is very right now. It's like overloaded. So now sometimes when people want to check out or whenever we're building contracts, the system is maybe like trying to buffer and sometimes it crashes, and hopefully with this new simplified fee structure, that's not going to happen too often and I think that it's also going to allow us to have more effective go live dates like August 15th and July 15th. I think those days are going to be easier for the customers to check out because the structure is easier for the system. So at the end of the day, I think this is overall a good movement in Cuff history. We're moving forward and I think it's a good thing.

Speaker 2

You said Cuff history.

Speaker 4

It's just Cuff history.

Speaker 1

History, history Director. Yeah, director Director Bill.

Speaker 2

Pearson. We had Ron speak, we have Vanessa coming in with all of this information. What does the director have to say about all of this?

Speaker 1

Well, you know the thing you had. One of the questions to query for us was surprises in the simplified system. One of the thing that kind of surprised me was when our consultant was working to come up with suggestions, recommendations for us. They did an analysis, a comparative jurisdiction analysis. They looked at Howard County, they looked at Fairfax, they looked at Washington DC and some other surrounding jurisdictions that they established for us created knowledge base, such as there, as Ron mentioned earlier, are not as many facilities being rented in any one of those locations. So, for example, dc won't rent auditoriums or cafeterias for the amount of time or in some cases not at all that we do. And when we look at them as a chart across the board, what you find is that our rates, even once we increase our fees, and even if we do that over the next three years, will still not be as high as the fees that are charged in those other jurisdictions. Wow, so not only do we provide more facility access by having more facilities available, but we are charging less, even after we increase our fees, than those other entities are. So I think we're still doing a great service to our community by providing this to them at a lower rate than they could get if they just went across the line to DC or Prince George's or Fairfax or Frederick or any of the surrounding jurisdictions, or Frederick or any of the surrounding jurisdictions. I also think that when you look at what we're planning to do, we are starting with a lower rate because the consultants gave us the opportunity to consider doing a much higher rate over a shorter period of time, and we said no. If we spread it out over a longer period of time, ie a three-year period, we can do a lower rate each year, and there may not be the need because we're going to reevaluate and reassess each year, and after this year we could have an increase in permits that allow us, through our enterprise fund, to be at a point or a place where we don't have to do another fee increase, at least not for a while. So these are all of the factors that went into our determining what we were going to do, when we're going to do and how we're going to do it.

Speaker 1

And I will say that we partnered with the county executive, who was very supportive and understanding of our need to increase fees, despite the fact that that's not something that's politically desirable, and then he went. He took it over to the county council and supported us in making the request to council. Council supported reluctantly because, again, it's just not, you know, nobody wants to raise anybody's fees on anything. So we all understood where we were coming from in that standpoint, especially in this day and age where you know tariffs are in play and there's all kinds of things that are driving expenses up. But together we all decided we can do this for this year. We'll reevaluate next year, we'll see where we are and hopefully we'll be on a very positive footing to say, ok, we can. We can, you know, ease up a little bit. So we'll see what happens.

Speaker 2

We will see. We will see.

Enterprise Fund and Community Benefits

Speaker 3

I think it's important to just kind of go over what Ramona said and some words that I heard Vanessa say. So Ramona was talking about an enterprise fund, so that sounds like we are making bank. We are not making bank, we operate like a nonprofit. So what comes in goes back out and we have a very, very small reserve that we keep in case there's an emergency. If we get extra money one year over another which hasn't happened in I don't know, probably a decade or definitely not since COVID when we have extra money it goes back into projects at the facilities you know, either you know replacing carpet somewhere you know assisting with some kind of gates.

Speaker 3

There's a variety of things. Part of those reimbursements that Vanessa talked about. They go back to MCPS, but they go back in different groups and sets where we're actually asking schools to purchase chairs and purchase equipment that the school benefits from but also the community benefits from it, and so that's a great partnership that we have with MCPS and it's beneficial to our community groups because if there's broken chairs and they've lost maybe 40 during a school year out of a few hundred, now they can replace those chairs and it benefits the school because the school has lost those chairs and so they need those chairs as well. So just little things like that. We've seen lawnmowers purchased to help try to keep things looking better outside, so there's quite a variety of things that happen.

Speaker 3

It is just. I think the only thing I can compare it to is a nonprofit Having dealt with a lot of nonprofits and served on nonprofit boards. We face the same challenges that nonprofits do. We want to make enough money to cover our expenses and to provide the services that we're commissioned to provide, but we're not making money. Our money doesn't go back into the general fund to make up any kind of deficit that the county might be facing, so I think that's important for people to know.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. I feel empowered. I feel like I learned something. I'm playing with you. I'm playing with you. So, vanessa, let's close out. Let's close out. Do you have any last words or anything you would like to say?

Speaker 4

Well, this was fun.

Speaker 4

Thank you again for inviting me Anytime and, yeah, I just want to say that we are very thankful to all our customers and all the organizations that we work with and we partner with, and you know and we partner with and you know at I just looking forward to the to the go live dates and I know that we're going to go through this together. I know you know there's a lot of changes that are going to occur, with Ron retiring, Ramona retiring the fee increases, but we're going to make it through and you guys can always give us a call at Cuff when you need assistance with reserving space or if you have any questions. You know our website. It also has come a long way. There's a lot of good information on the website that you guys can always feel free to go on and you know, if you have any questions, feel free, we're always willing to to help and as we go around the table, I guess I'll jump in and save the best two people for last, even though you're just a special Vanessa, just to let.

Speaker 2

I don't want to say that like that, because I just wanted to jump into just to say that this has been an awesome moment to be able to enjoy this podcast with all three of y'all. I do appreciate you, vanessa, ramona, ron. It has been awesome and it continues to be awesome. Yes, I do not like the retirement word, but I am so happy for y'all. I really am. I really am. This is something that I want to learn and absorb so I can understand. This is how y'all do it, so let me make sure I follow suit and see how y'all do it so I can maybe do the same thing at some point. But I just wanted to say thank you and shout out, of course, to the core services team, cuff, core services team. Y'all are awesome. Y'all continue to do every chance I get to reach out to everybody and just pick people's brains and see what's going on Next, ron.

Speaker 2

Ron can you close us out with something? Can you give us something?

Speaker 3

I would say that it's been a wild 24 years for me at Cuff and I've seen tremendous changes. I've seen the community use program grow and I've seen some of the businesses and some of the nonprofits that were here before I got here that are still doing well. They're still using our facilities despite all of the challenges that they may face, and I think that's really cool. The other thing I want to say is at the bottom of the signature line of every core services team member, there is a link that says if you need more information, click here. That link takes you to our blog and it has a single page on customer care and there are a variety of links and resources there for just about anything you need, so anything that a customer will need to do, even after hours, at three in the morning, you can find a link to take you to those instructions, or a form or part of our website email address what have you? Please use it up.

Speaker 2

Awesome, awesome, yeah, thank you, ron, always throwing in that good information. Because it's there, it's available, it's been put up there for everybody to use, so please use it. Director Bell Pearson, can you close us out, please?

Closing Thoughts and Resources

Speaker 1

Can you close us out? Please Can you close us out? Guess our audience probably doesn't know, but we haven't had you that long. We created the communications manager position so that we would have an outreach opportunity, be more aggressive and assertive in terms of educating our community, and I think you've done a good job at that. So I wanted to thank you for that, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2

Well, I want to say thank you to everybody and we're going to close out.

Speaker 5

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