BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM — The Village Board of Trustees has approved the dissolution of the village's Recreation Fund and the transfer of its remaining finances and obligations into the village’s general fund budget.

At their June 15 meeting, village officials said the move was done to streamline the budget process and manage the recreation budget like other village departments.

Under the resolution, all cash balances, assets, liabilities, revenues and expenditures associated with the Recreation Fund will be transferred to the General Fund. Village officials said future recreation-related revenues and expenditures will be accounted for within the General Fund unless the board directs otherwise through a future resolution.

The board also authorized the village treasurer to complete all necessary accounting entries, budget amendments and financial adjustments required to carry out the transfer.

The action consolidates the village's recreation finances into the General Fund and eliminates the separate Recreation Fund as a standalone accounting entity.

“The recreation fund was originally created to help track recreation services separately to evaluate whether the department could be sustained as a separate fund or not,” Village Administrator Isabelle Gates-Shult told the village board at the meeting.  

“Since coming into office, my feeling was having it tracked as a separate fund was not really reflective of how it operates as a service of the village of Potsdam, appearing essentially as like a debt owed from the general fund in a sense,” added Village Mayor Alexandra Jacobs Wilke. “Whereas our other funds, which are supported and prevent property taxes in some cases, and in part by other types of revenues we discussed — could be grant funds, could be fines, could be fees — and in this case, recreation receives funds through user fees as well. We don't track them in the same way and it just seemed odd all this time to maintain it as a separate fund, when it's really one of our departments that operates like every other department under the administrator, or in this case, under our director of Parks and Recreation.”

“It just comes up every year at budget time. It feels strange to have to balance it in that way,” the mayor said.

During a brief discussion on the issue, a member of the public in the gallery who previously served on the Potsdam recreation committee said the recreation fund was originally broken out of the general fund when the village and town both funded Potsdam recreation together. The town broke away from the village and formed its own recreation program at Postwood Park several years ago.