By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
In the summer of 2022, the Great Bend Recreation Commission and the City of Great Bend entered a cost share agreement to split a $16,000 expense to create site plan rendering of improvements to the south side of Brit Spaugh Park. This past April, the Great Bend City Council decided to table the project when the lone bid to complete improvements was roughly a million dollars more than $2.1 million expected price.
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The Great Bend Rec initially allocated $340,000 for the playground piece of the Brit Spaugh Park project, but Rec Executive Director Chris Umphres encouraged the Rec Board to reassign the funds back to the general fund.
"It's not to say we won't ever go back to it, but there is probably no need in this budget year coming up to hold those funds for that specific project," said Umphres. "We can look at other projects trying to figure something out. For this specific one, I don't see it happening in 2024-2025 so it makes sense to put the money back in."
The Board approved redistributing the $340,000 to the general fund after Umphres said the Rec’s auditor recommended to stop rolling those monies over for the project.
The city received one bid from Prairie Landworks for a total of $3,019,000 to include a basketball court, pickleball courts, mini soccer pitches, playground and other amenities. The city wanted to fund the majority of the project with the .15% quality-of-life sales tax revenue.