The five-year contract between the township and the West Chester Baseball Partnership extends the current agreement, which is set to expire at year’s end, and changes some areas as requested by the West Chester Baseball Partnership.
The original agreement required WCBP to set aside $10,000 annually to the Community Foundation of West Chester/Liberty for a fund for long-term capital improvements to the complex. That requirement was removed from the new agreement.
“There have been contributions made to this fund over the years, so there is some funding available for capital improvements, but it will no longer be a required contribution,” according to Barb Wilson, the township’s spokeswoman.
The second change will see the township assume responsibility for utility costs for water, sewer, telephone, gas, electric and trash removal. In addition, it will consider, after the need is validated, an annual purchase of field dirt, grass seed and other “appropriate and necessary” field materials, Wilson said.
The new financial mode, with its discharged lease payment and assumed utility costs, reduces WCBP’s costs by $16,000 annually and increases its revenues by providing a subsidy for field materials, totaling a not-to-exceed $25,000 concession, she said.
The organization hosts more than 200 games on the fields each year, operates on an annual budget of about $100,000, one supported by the fundraising efforts of area volunteers, who raise more than that each year, according to Mark Dunaway, who sits on the WCBP’s board of directors.
Since the WCBP replaced a former operator in 2009, the complex has generated $3.9 million for the township and $5.5 million for the county via restaurant revenue, hotel lodging and other related expenditures by out-of-town visitors, Dunaway said.
Additionally, the tournaments held at the facility have generated about $45,000 in tax dollars for the Butler County Visitors Bureau, $86,000 for Butler County and $45,000 for the township, Dunaway said.
WCBP board members contributed $28,000 in private loans to get through the first two years, he said. In addition, WCBP has paid more than $55,000 to the township and purchased bleachers for $23,000.
WCBP also has invested more than $50,000 to get the fields “back to spec” and the township has invested an additional $8,000, he said.
“The feedback that we get in the baseball community is WCBC is back to where it was when it was built,” Dunaway said. “There was a time when it was one of the first parks to get rained out and one of the parks you couldn’t always count on to play. That’s no longer true.”
WCBP faced many financial challenges in the past five years, including reconditioning property that was in worse shape than anticipated and competing against schools, a 16-field complex located in Elizabethtown, Ky. and a 26-field complex in Millville, Ind.
While WCBP has been financially self-sufficient for the past five years, “there’s a fair amount of financial risk associated with that,” he said.
“In a continued challenging economy, we’ve been able to make it work so far, but at some point we could run out of rabbits to pull out of our hat,” Dunaway said. “We don’t want to do that and that’s the basis of some of the concessions that we asked for.”
Trustees George Lang and Mark Welch voted to approve the contract, while Trustee Lee Wong voted “no” after asking to postpone the issue because of a request by some in the area’s baseball community to examine the agreement and provide further input.
Lang and Welch both said the township had provided enough time to do so between the start of agreement renewal talks five months ago and a WCBP presentation to trustees in late August.
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