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SALEM -- Salem voters will decide the fate of the parks department's 1.3-mill recreational levy renewal in the upcoming election.
Early voting for the upcoming Nov. 3 General Election is underway, and Salem voters will be presented with the question of renewing the departments' recreational levy for five years. It was last renewed by voters in 2022.
If renewed, the levy's term will begin with tax year 2027 to be collected in 2028. The levy is estimated to generate $166,794 for the department annually. As a renewal of an existing tax it will not cost residents any more than they are already paying.
Parks Director Kelli Pastore said the money generated by the levy funds the department's public programming like the annual Trail of Treats and Easter egg hunt, as well as subsidizing the operating costs of the Centennial Park Pool and Salem City Lake, which exceed the revenue they generate. She said those funds also pay for improvements to facilities used by the public like baseball fields.
Pastore said if the levy is not renewed, the department will need to make significant cuts and that while the decision of where those cuts will be made will fall to the commissioners, public events like the Trail of Treats and Easter egg hunt would likely be discontinued due to the costs of material and labor required to prepare for and host them. She said that the department may also be unable to open the pool or lake or host annual fall and summer sports leagues.
"Anything that would be an expense to the department would have to be considered. For baseball and softball, you need field chalk and equipment, and those things wouldn't be available. The fields and things like that may not be available for use either. Even though we have usage fees, [the fees] don't cover the actual cost for people to use them because we pay for staffing, insurance and any supplies needed to prepare them for people's use," Pastore said.
The recreational levy is one of two levies which wholly fund the parks department, as it does not receive direct funding from the city's general fund as a semi-autonomous entity. The other levy is a 1-mill operational levy last renewed by voters in May 2025, which generates approximately $224,000 for the department annually.