Is MoCo taking advantage of Rockville's pool

[Anonymous]

I get the sense that RMSC at Rockville has a large number of kids from the county. I was at Division A swim meets this summer and the question came up "Is she in RMSC", quite often. Well, no she isn't, but she is faster than your kids. I know for a fact several parents form Potomac were able to get their kids into Rockville RMSC with "Private Tryouts", meanwhile hundreds of kids are denied access each summer. "Private tryouts" as well as unsafe practices at tryouts were reported, and they "changed their methods", however it is suspicious that they didn't think that this was inappropriate in the first place.

Is there any way to confirm how frequent this is? I feel like the basic mechanism is that parents from communities such as Potomac are more willing to pay the expensive private lessons. RSFC seems to encourage this to subsidize the pool and swim team. But what good is your city pool if you don't even get to swim in it?

I contacted Rockville City Council and Mayer communications, who didn't seem to have any logical problems with there being excess demand (considering Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center is closing), and "needing" to have non-residents to subsidize the program.

"Thank you for your feedback on the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center. All members of Mayor and Council and key staff in Recreation and Parks have received your message. The facility is indeed very popular with a mix of City of Rockville residents and nonresidents alike. Staff have provided the information below in response to your message.

Tax funding provides support for city services overall, with a portion going to support the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center. User fee revenues account for the remaining support needed to operate the center. Registrations and associated revenues received by nonresidents make it possible for the large facility to operate in a cost effective manner. If participation were limited to City of Rockville residents, the per-user fee for many programs and memberships would well exceed the market rate for comparable services and would in turn make them inaccessible to many members of the community. This approach to combined resident and nonresident participation is used across all Recreation and Parks programs and facilities. Rockville residents do receive a discount on facility memberships and admissions and are eligible for financial aid scholarships if income qualified. Knowing that the facility is quite popular and can become crowded at times, "


The other thing that doesn't make sense is how can they claim that a subsidized pool would exceed market rate if they didn't have non-residents. Is there fraud going on here? It doesn't add up. Are non-residents paying more than market rate to subsidize residents? I highly doubt that.

[Anonymous]

This is absolutely none of your business.

[Anonymous]

I think a good start would be to disband the Rays. Would free open a lot of pool time the citizens of Rockville.

[Anonymous]

yawn, again with this Rockville stuff, is there a Virginia equivalent that we can talk about instead?

[Anonymous]

They are telling you that there is not enough demand from Rockville residents alone to fund current programming. Sure they could get more tax dollars, but you’d have to cut other services or raise taxes.

[Anonymous]

yes. non-residents of Rockville city paying more with annual family pass close to $700. MoCo pool pass for family is $550.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get the sense that RMSC at Rockville has a large number of kids from the county. I was at Division A swim meets this summer and the question came up "Is she in RMSC", quite often. Well, no she isn't, but she is faster than your kids. I know for a fact several parents form Potomac were able to get their kids into Rockville RMSC with "Private Tryouts", meanwhile hundreds of kids are denied access each summer. "Private tryouts" as well as unsafe practices at tryouts were reported, and they "changed their methods", however it is suspicious that they didn't think that this was inappropriate in the first place.

Is there any way to confirm how frequent this is? I feel like the basic mechanism is that parents from communities such as Potomac are more willing to pay the expensive private lessons. RSFC seems to encourage this to subsidize the pool and swim team. But what good is your city pool if you don't even get to swim in it?

I contacted Rockville City Council and Mayer communications, who didn't seem to have any logical problems with there being excess demand (considering Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center is closing), and "needing" to have non-residents to subsidize the program.

"Thank you for your feedback on the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center. All members of Mayor and Council and key staff in Recreation and Parks have received your message. The facility is indeed very popular with a mix of City of Rockville residents and nonresidents alike. Staff have provided the information below in response to your message.

Tax funding provides support for city services overall, with a portion going to support the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center. User fee revenues account for the remaining support needed to operate the center. Registrations and associated revenues received by nonresidents make it possible for the large facility to operate in a cost effective manner. If participation were limited to City of Rockville residents, the per-user fee for many programs and memberships would well exceed the market rate for comparable services and would in turn make them inaccessible to many members of the community. This approach to combined resident and nonresident participation is used across all Recreation and Parks programs and facilities. Rockville residents do receive a discount on facility memberships and admissions and are eligible for financial aid scholarships if income qualified. Knowing that the facility is quite popular and can become crowded at times, "


The other thing that doesn't make sense is how can they claim that a subsidized pool would exceed market rate if they didn't have non-residents. Is there fraud going on here? It doesn't add up. Are non-residents paying more than market rate to subsidize residents? I highly doubt that.

Revenue = number of people paying x price of admission/membership

If you don't allow nonresidents you have fewer people paying and therefore less revenue

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes. non-residents of Rockville city paying more with annual family pass close to $700. MoCo pool pass for family is $550.

I've shopped around and of private swim clubs are much more expensive than Rockville's RMSC, except they tend to require extra private lessons because they provide any technique development.

To quote another thread Rockville's subsidized RMSC is much less than even the other MOCO RMSCs.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/1112090.page

The thing RMSC pretty much optimizes the pools, the North Pool is seldom available for use. You can look at the budget for the pools, and they also dominate the sports fees dominate the revenue. There are plenty of Rockville kids that would pay those fees.

Sure, pad the revenue but only after those who are paying taxes get to use the thing. Anything else is fraud. Taking my money to pay for your pool time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yawn, again with this Rockville stuff, is there a Virginia equivalent that we can talk about instead?

Weird, there are other threads Rockville area threads. My kids aren't even on one of these teams and the coaches give me the heebie-jeebies, just one tryout where they had untrained seven-year-olds go off
racing blocks. They blamed it on a rogue coach who they fired, but there were multiple coaches in the room that didn't seem to notice or care, how did they not notice that at a mini tryout. It was weird they had them go off racing blocks, then they went back and did breaststroke. They disqualified her for the breaststroke though she did an awful racing block dive. I confronted one of the coaches who happened to be giving private lessons on racing block diving, and she said that is how they have always done it.

I really don't want my tax dollars subsidizing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yawn, again with this Rockville stuff, is there a Virginia equivalent that we can talk about instead?

Weird, there are other threads Rockville area threads. My kids aren't even on one of these teams and the coaches give me the heebie-jeebies, just one tryout where they had untrained seven-year-olds go off
racing blocks. They blamed it on a rogue coach who they fired, but there were multiple coaches in the room that didn't seem to notice or care, how did they not notice that at a mini tryout. It was weird they had them go off racing blocks, then they went back and did breaststroke. They disqualified her for the breaststroke though she did an awful racing block dive. I confronted one of the coaches who happened to be giving private lessons on racing block diving, and she said that is how they have always done it.

I really don't want my tax dollars subsidizing that.

You want your 2¢ back? Post your address.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting though, the trend of NCAP leaving for RMSC is documented here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1214467.page

I had sort of suspected that that was why they were getting away with having kids do racing dives. The kids were defecting from private groups to RMSC and had already been in year round programs, in addition to the private lessons that were going on.

Anyway, it adds more evidence that the Rockville pool is being taking advantage of by non-residents for the low cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting though, the trend of NCAP leaving for RMSC is documented here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1214467.page

I had sort of suspected that that was why they were getting away with having kids do racing dives. The kids were defecting from private groups to RMSC and had already been in year round programs, in addition to the private lessons that were going on.

Anyway, it adds more evidence that the Rockville pool is being taking advantage of by non-residents for the low cost.

OP, what’s your beef? Non-resident “taking advantage” of Rockville pool? Really. Do you hear yourself? Kids, county or city are trying to learn how to swim and you are making it sound like we, county residents are trying to trick Rockville pool into letting us take lessons and use the pool. Rockville pool will not survive if it is JUST for city residents.

Is your issue with RMSC? Did your kid not get in? If RMSC coaches are not doing things that you approved of, you can always go to another club. That’s one way you can “show” Rockville by just joining another club, going to another summer swim team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting though, the trend of NCAP leaving for RMSC is documented here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1214467.page

I had sort of suspected that that was why they were getting away with having kids do racing dives. The kids were defecting from private groups to RMSC and had already been in year round programs, in addition to the private lessons that were going on.

Anyway, it adds more evidence that the Rockville pool is being taking advantage of by non-residents for the low cost.

OP, what’s your beef? Non-resident “taking advantage” of Rockville pool? Really. Do you hear yourself? Kids, county or city are trying to learn how to swim and you are making it sound like we, county residents are trying to trick Rockville pool into letting us take lessons and use the pool. Rockville pool will not survive if it is JUST for city residents.

Is your issue with RMSC? Did your kid not get in? If RMSC coaches are not doing things that you approved of, you can always go to another club. That’s one way you can “show” Rockville by just joining another club, going to another summer swim team.

OP wants a public pool at subsidized prices but for it to not be crowded like a private pool. Good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting though, the trend of NCAP leaving for RMSC is documented here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1214467.page

I had sort of suspected that that was why they were getting away with having kids do racing dives. The kids were defecting from private groups to RMSC and had already been in year round programs, in addition to the private lessons that were going on.

Anyway, it adds more evidence that the Rockville pool is being taking advantage of by non-residents for the low cost.

OP, what’s your beef? Non-resident “taking advantage” of Rockville pool? Really. Do you hear yourself? Kids, county or city are trying to learn how to swim and you are making it sound like we, county residents are trying to trick Rockville pool into letting us take lessons and use the pool. Rockville pool will not survive if it is JUST for city residents.

Is your issue with RMSC? Did your kid not get in? If RMSC coaches are not doing things that you approved of, you can always go to another club. That’s one way you can “show” Rockville by just joining another club, going to another summer swim team.

OP wants a public pool at subsidized prices but for it to not be crowded like a private pool. Good luck with that.

Or at least to not have to pay for a pool I am unable to enjoy. You want a crowded pool filled with absurd coaches; you pay for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting though, the trend of NCAP leaving for RMSC is documented here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1214467.page

I had sort of suspected that that was why they were getting away with having kids do racing dives. The kids were defecting from private groups to RMSC and had already been in year round programs, in addition to the private lessons that were going on.

Anyway, it adds more evidence that the Rockville pool is being taking advantage of by non-residents for the low cost.

OP, what’s your beef? Non-resident “taking advantage” of Rockville pool? Really. Do you hear yourself? Kids, county or city are trying to learn how to swim and you are making it sound like we, county residents are trying to trick Rockville pool into letting us take lessons and use the pool. Rockville pool will not survive if it is JUST for city residents.

Is your issue with RMSC? Did your kid not get in? If RMSC coaches are not doing things that you approved of, you can always go to another club. That’s one way you can “show” Rockville by just joining another club, going to another summer swim team.

OP wants a public pool at subsidized prices but for it to not be crowded like a private pool. Good luck with that.

Or at least to not have to pay for a pool I am unable to enjoy. You want a crowded pool filled with absurd coaches; you pay for it.

Crowded = lots of revenue with low user costs

Join a private swim club if you want that type of experience.