Preview - Public Policy Playbook for Aquatics and Recreation

0:00When was the last time you felt in control of your business finances? Expenses tracked, invoices sent, taxes ready. That's where Found comes in. Found brings your banking, bookkeeping, invoicing, and taxes together in one simple app. Manage expenses, invoice clients, send payments, and prep for tax time right where you bank. Join the hundreds of thousands who have already streamlined their finances with Found. Open a Found account for free at found.com. That's f-o-u-n-d.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking service is provided by Lead Bank Number F-D-I-C. Imagine building this beautiful multi-million dollar public library right in the center of your town. Right, just a massive community investment. Exactly. You construct a building, you put in all the shelves, you turn on the lights, and then you just refuse to buy any books.

1:00Or, you know, hire a single librarian. Yeah. And if a city did that, you would call it a scandalous waste of taxpayer money. It would be on the front page of the local paper. Oh, absolutely. But right now, in your city, and, well, cities all across the country, that is exactly what we are doing with public pools. It really is. It's wild when you think about it. Welcome back, especially to all of you out there, we affectionately call the learner. The folks who love to understand the hidden mechanics of how the world actually works. We're looking at a piece of infrastructure you probably drive past all the time. Almost certainly. We've been pouring over this comprehensive municipal strategy playbook, a source document, literally called City Pools. And the mission of this is to completely reframe how you view local public pools. Because we have to stop seeing them as just seasonal money pits or basic recreational amenities. Right, instead, this document reveals how they are critical, life-saving, civic infrastructure. Yeah, infrastructure that's actually capable

2:00of solving major public health and workforce challenges. Because to understand why a municipal strategy document like this even exists, we have to talk about the stakes. And the stakes are incredibly high. Literally life and death. We are talking about a severe ongoing public health crisis here. We are. The grim reality that the data in our source material highlights is that drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages one to four in the United States. Wait, the leading cause. Not a leading cause. The leading cause. That is just a staggering fact to sit with. I mean, more than car accidents, more than illness. Exactly. And the trend lines over the last few years, they're moving in the wrong direction. Which is terrifying. It is. According to the CDC data analyzed in the playbook, between 2020 and 2022, over 4,500 Americans died from drowning each year. Yeah. And that represents a jump of 500 annual deaths compared to 2019. We are actively losing ground. And it's not hitting every community equally either.

3:03When you look at the equity and racial disparities in this data, they are severe. Extremely severe. Like drowning rates for black Americans were 28% higher in 2021 than they were in 2019. Yeah. And the research shows that one in three black adults cannot swim. Plus when you look at income levels, 79% of children and households earning under $50,000 a year have little to no swimming experience whatsoever. What's fascinating here is, well, when you look at those numbers systemically, you realize these aren't just unpredictable, tragic accidents. They are the highly predictable results of a massive gap between the physical pools we've built and the programming we actually deliver. The concrete pool is just sitting there in the neighborhood. But the access to the instruction that makes that water safe simply isn't there. Precisely. A pool without programming is just a very expensive puddle. I hear that. And obviously, the safety data is entirely undeniable. But I want to push back on this a bit, or at least inject some stark reality. Sure, go for it.

4:04Reunissible budgets are incredibly tight right now. City councils are fighting over pennies. Oh, absolutely. You look at a city like Pittsburgh, right? They have a historically great aquatic tradition, but they've halved their outdoor pools down to about 15 over the years. Right. Since it had, he went from 44 pools in the late 90s down to 24 today. Cities are literally filling pools with dirt and paving over them, because the maintenance costs are just eating them alive. Yeah, we see it all the time. So how on earth can we ask a city manager to spend more money on aquatic programming when they can barely keep the street lights on? It's the logical question. And honestly, it's exactly what every city council brings up. But the answer in the playbook clarifies a massive misconception. The solution isn't necessarily building a new $10 million mega facility. The solution is maximizing the assets that already exist. Closing a pool in an underserved community to save a few thousand dollars on maintenance, just compounds inequities that have existed for generations.

5:06Because you're taking away the only resource they have. Exactly. The fix isn't massive capital expenditure. It's operational strategy. It's taking the water you already have and running it as an efficient self-sustaining business. Which brings us to the actual mechanics of how you do that. Because if drowning is the primary crisis, the direct response has to be teaching people to swim. Absolutely. Play number one in the document. Right. And there was a stat here that absolutely stopped me in my tracks. Formal swim lessons reduce the risk of drowning for one to four year olds by 88%. Just think about that from public health perspective for a second. It's unbelievable. A single, relatively simple intervention that reduces a leading cause of childhood death by nearly 90% is almost unheard of in modern medicine or public safety. That single statistical loan justifies every tax dollar put into Learn to Swim Programming. It really does. But here is the critical pivot that city managers need to understand. What's up? Learn to swim isn't just a safety intervention.

6:08When structured correctly, it is the financial engine of the entire facility. Because the margins on group lessons are phenomenal. Highly efficient. I mean, think about the math here. If you are charging a very reasonable eight to $15 per participant for a group lesson, and you have one instructor teaching six to eight kids. That adds up fast. It does. That single instructor can generate thousands of dollars a week for the facility with virtually zero additional overhead. The water is already there. The electricity is already paid for. Right. The playbook points to the Geneva Park District in Illinois as a prime example of this. Yes, great example. They fill 770 family enrollments per summer strictly through their Learn to Swim Program. And their primary constraint on revenue growth isn't a lack of demand in the community. No, it's literally just running out of physical pool space. Exactly. But the strategy doesn't stop at offering the class. And this is where the operational genius, the glue, really kits in with play eight. Right, packaging and scheduling.

7:10Because you can't just teach a kid to blow bubbles and float, hand them a cheap certificate, and say goodbye. Right, but most municipal facilities operate in terrible bureaucratic silos. A family signs up. The kid finishes level three swim lessons. They get their little paper certificate on a Friday, and then nothing. Nothing. The facility expects the parent to remember to go online three weeks later, navigate some clunky municipal website, and register for level four. And what happens? They don't. Friction kills the process and the family disappears. So what does the playbook say to do instead? It argues you have to aggressively manage that transition. When they finish level three, the instructor hands the parent a level four registration flyer right there on the pool deck. And they sign up at the checkout desk on their way to the car. Exactly. So what does this all mean? It's basically, would you like fries with that model, but applied to public safety? That's a great way to put it. It removes the friction from continuing the journey. You're capturing them while the value of the lesson is literally standing right in front of them, wrapped in a towel.

8:12Precisely. You are building a continuous relationship, not just processing a one-off municipal transaction. Right. And that brings us to the most vulnerable point in that relationship. The playbook identifies a highly specific drop-off period that plagues almost every pool in the country. They call it the gap age. Yes, the gap age. Let's dig into this, because the logical next question is, what happens when a kid graduates from Learn to Swim, but is too young to work? Right. The mechanism of this failure is fascinating. A kid finishes all their Learn to Swim levels. They're eight, maybe 10, maybe 12 years old. They're water safe. Yeah, they can swim fine. But they are entirely too young to legally get a job as a lifeguard. And maybe they just don't have the desire or the genetics to be an intense six days a week competitive swimmer. Exactly. So what do they do? Historically, the facility offers that kid absolutely nothing so naturally they leave. They go play soccer, or they go play video games. Yeah. And when they leave, the pool doesn't just

9:13lose a casual participant. No. They lose the single most important resource they have, their future workforce. Which transitions us from keeping kids in the water to solving a national staffing crisis. Because we are in the middle of a massive workforce crisis in this space. We really are. The 2025 aquatic trends report cited in the document states that 41.8% of facility managers report lifeguard shortages. Nearly half the industry literally cannot open their doors fully because they can't find enough teenagers to sit in the chair. And solving that national staffing crisis starts with those eight to 14 year olds we just talked about. Play two, the retention bridge. Right. If you want a 16 year old lifeguard, you have to cultivate the 10 year old. And the solution here relies heavily on game-based middle school programs, things like Waterball, which is basically a chaotic, fun version of water polo, right? Or snorkeling clinics or junior lifeguard camps. The mechanism is simple. You keep them engaged. You keep them physically in the water.

10:14And they naturally transition into your workforce. Because the cost of doing it the hard way, relying on random high schoolers applying off the street is staggering. How bad is it? Well, place seven focuses on staff development. And the document notes it costs the facility between $51500 just to recruit, interview, hire, and train a single new lifeguard. It adds up so incredibly fast. It does. Retaining just 10 staff members who might otherwise have turned over saves a facility up to $15,000 annually. Wow. And facilities that actually implement structured staff development see a massive 35% jump in return rates year over year. That's huge. And the examples in the text are great. Look at LA County's junior lifeguard program. Oh, yeah. It costs about $635 per child to run. But they view it as an investment because it explicitly builds their future lifeguard pipeline. Or look at the toilet and hills, parks and recreation district in Oregon. They run an earn-to-learn program. I love the earn-to-learn concept. Let's explain how that works.

11:14Because traditional lifeguard certification costs a couple hundred dollars up front, right? Right. It's a massive barrier to entry. Yeah, especially for a lower income teenager who needs a summer job. They can't afford to pay $200 just for the privilege of applying for a minimum wage job. Exactly. So, Tuidad and Hills flips the script and actually pays the candidates an hourly wage while they train and get certified. Which is brilliant. It removes the financial barrier entirely, which broadens your applicant pool exponentially. Here's where it gets really interesting. This is exactly like a baseball farm system. That's a perfect analogy. You don't just sit around the front office and complain that there are no pro players walking off the street ready to play in the World Series, you intentionally build a minor league system to develop them. Yes. Those 12-year-olds playing Otter Ball on a Thursday afternoon. Those are your future Tuesday morning lifeguards. You're not hoping to magically find a lifeguard in a tight labor market. You are a manufacturing one. Manufacturing one is the perfect way to articulate it.

12:16You are internalizing your supply chain. Right. You're taking control of your own labor market. But, you know, let's follow the logic here. Let's say you've executed this perfectly. Okay. You're a youth pipeline. You've got your lifeguards. Your Learn to Swim program is humming. But then September rolls around. The kids go to school. And what happens to that massive, incredibly expensive, concrete asset at 10-0 AM on a Wednesday? Crickets. It sits totally empty. The water is still circulating. The chemicals are still being used. But nobody's there. Which means we have to talk about adults. Because making a pool financially viable means filling the dead hours. And the stats here are wild. According to the research, 28 million Americans swim primarily for fitness. That's play three adult fitness. And from an operational standpoint, it is the most loyal, reliable demographic a facility can possibly attract. Really? Oh, yeah. Older adults, in particular, desperately need low impact cardiovascular exercise. Right, that makes sense.

13:17The Geneva Park District, which we mentioned earlier, has a program called AM Aquafit at 6-0-0 AM. Okay. It contains incredibly consistent enrollment year round. Because that specific demographic will show up reliably week after week, year after year, regardless of the weather. Which makes me want to ask a pointed question here about how we design our cities. Why is adult fitness so often treated as a complete afterthought in municipal planning? It's a great question. Are we just so culturally obsessed with youth sports that we completely ignore the fact that a 65-year-old water aerobics participant is arguably a much better customer? I think we are. I mean, they will show up religiously every Tuesday for a decade, whereas a kid ages out of a youth swim team in a few years. It's a massive blind spot. We tend to view public pools entirely through the lens of nostalgia, summer childhood memories splashing around with friends. Sure, the classic summer movie scenes. Right, we don't view them through the lens of lifelong wellness. But the financial reality of running these facilities

14:19requires us to look at adults. And that economic argument extends to play six competitive pathways, right? It does. You have to rent your lanes out. You rent to youth clubs, to high schools, and specifically to US master swimming, which has 55,000 adult members nationally. And those groups are willing to pay a premium for guaranteed water time. They absolutely are. Renting lanes at $15 to $40 an hour guarantees base revenue. Which is great for the facility. But the mechanism goes beyond just the pool's balance sheet. It brings a massive economic multiplier to the whole town. How so? Well, the playbook cites aquatic research in Bellevue, Washington. When they hosted regional swim meets, it brought 300 to 2,500 participants and spectators into the city daily. Oh, wow. Think about the cascade effect of that. Those 2,500 people have to sleep somewhere so they fill local hotels. Right. They have to eat so they pack local diners and restaurants. The pool ceases to be just a place to swim. It becomes an economic engine for the local chamber of commerce.

15:21And you don't even have to host a massive Olympic level tournament to see that kind of community impact. No, definitely not. The playbook outlines play for community activation. And this is really about creating front doors for the broader community, getting non-swimmers through the door. To build political goodwill. Exactly. I love this example. Columbus, Indiana hosts an end of season dog swim right before they drain the pool for winter. It's such a fun idea. They charge five bucks a dog. And one year, they drew 144 dogs. Can you imagine the sheer chaos and the joy of 144 wet golden retrievers and labor doors in a public pool? It would be incredible. Or, you know, on a more regular basis, hosting birthday party packages that can command $150 to $400 a pop. If we connect this to the bigger picture, that dog swim isn't just a cute photo op for the local newspaper. It is political armor. A little armor. Yeah. A facility hosting an annual dog swim that brings out 150 local families, a lucrative birthday party every Saturday,

16:23and a master's tournament on a Sunday is incredibly hard for a city council to defund. I see. If a local politician tries to close a pool that is just an empty concrete basin, nobody notices. But if they try to close the community hub where everyone's dog swam last weekend, they face a riot at the next town hall. That makes perfect sense. The pool ceases to be a line item expense on a spreadsheet and becomes deeply emotionally woven into the community fabric. Exactly. It generates essential political goodwill. OK, so let's look at the board. We've optimized the schedule. We have farm system manufacturing our lifeguards. We have dog swimming, seniors doing aquifit, kids doing private lessons. The spreadsheet looks amazing. It does. But I'm looking at this perfectly optimized model. And it feels a bit elitist. How do you mean? Are we only serving the people who already know how to find us? The middle class families who have the time, the transportation, and the disposable income to sign up for level four swimming or master's tournaments?

17:24That's a very fair critique. What about that 79% of lower income kids we talked about at the very beginning? They aren't going to accidentally stumble into an aquifit class. No, they're not. And that is the crucial pivot here moving into section five. It's where the strategy shifts to active community outreach. Play five. Because if you only serve the people who have the means to walk through your front doors, you will never, ever close the equity gaps we discussed at the top of the show. Exactly. The infrastructure won't save lives if the most vulnerable people never touch the water. Right, you literally have to go to them. You do. The playbook talks about moving beyond the physical walls of the facility to partner with the institutions that already have access to these kids. Like schools, foster care agencies, faith groups. Yes. There's an amazing program in New Hanna Recounty in North Carolina called schools and pools, specifically targeted at second graders. I saw that. And New York City actually passed legislation requiring free swim lessons for second graders across the board.

18:26Because they finally recognized that teaching a child to survive in the water wasn't just a recreational issue. It was a fundamental public health intervention. And logistics of those partnerships are brilliant. You partner with the public school district. Right. It is the captive audience of children and the bus transportation during school hours. And the aquatic facility provides the water and the certified instruction. It's a total win-win. This is shifting from a storefront model where we wait for customers to walk in to a delivery model for public health. You take the water's safety directly to the populations who need it most. That's a great analogy. But, and it's a very big but, who is paying for this outreach? If we are heavily subsidizing lessons for thousands of second graders, what does the money actually come from? Because we already established the city manager is broke. Exactly. The playbook addresses this elephant in the room head-on and the answer might surprise people. Which is? The money is out there. At the state level, you have massive initiatives

19:27like NY Swims in New York, which committed $200 million specifically for pools, heavily targeting underserved areas. 200 million is massive. It is. But even beyond state infrastructure bills, you have federal and philanthropic money, you have the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or WIOA. Wait, WIOA is federal money for job training, right? Now, how does that apply to a public pool? Because, as we established earlier with the farm system, training lifeguards is workforce development. Oh, wow. You are taking untrained teenagers, giving them highly technical, certified medical and rescue training, and employing them. That qualifies for federal workforce grants. That is so smart. And you also have community development block grants or CDBG? Let's explain that one, because I think a lot of people hear block grants and their eyes glaze over. Basically, that's federal money handed down to local governments specifically meant to revitalize low-to-moderate income neighborhoods, correct? Exactly. And if you have structured your pool,

20:29not just as a place to splash around, but as a neighborhood anchor that provides child safety, adult wellness, and youth employment, you perfectly fit the criteria for a neighborhood revitalization grant. You do. Add to that organizations like the USA Swimming Foundation and the Step Into Swim Program, which has already funded lessons for 285,000 kids nationally. Right. The resources exist at every single level of government and philanthropy. But, and I assume this is the catch, they don't just hand you a giant novelty check just because you happen to own a pool. No, they certainly do not. And this raises an important question for any pool operator listening. What's the question? Can you prove your impact? Funders do not fund pools. They don't care about the concrete. They find workforce development and drowning prevention. Right. They fund community equity to access that money, you have to collect the hard data to tell that story. You have to track your neighborhood demographics, your lesson completion rates, your specific transition numbers from junior lifeguard to paid employee.

21:32Exactly. If you can prove with data that your facility is actually executing on all of those fronts, you become incredibly well positioned to access millions of dollars in funds that an empty, unprogrammed pool will never see. Okay, this has been an incredibly reframing of how we view our cities. It really is a paradigm shift. The next time you, the listener, drive past your local municipal pool, you shouldn't just see a place to cool off in July. No, you are looking at a highly targeted public health intervention. You're looking at a youth employment engine and a community hub. The infrastructure is already there. The opportunity lies entirely in how it gets used. It's all about moving from passive maintenance to active programming. And I want to leave you with a final thought to mull over. Okay. If our local pools are sitting there operating at a fraction of their potential civic value, what other invisible public infrastructure is hiding in plain sight in our neighborhoods? Hmm. What else have we already paid for with our taxes

22:33that is just waiting for the right playbook to unlock its true power? The playbook that they're speaking of is coming. It's not yet published, but Ron Usher and I are working on it. And we'd like to have you check it out when it's available. Together is better, especially for technology. Ditch siloed solutions that keep voice calls, data, and workflows separate from Salesforce. Bring it all together with Vonage Premiere for Salesforce Voice. Learn how at Vonage.com slash CTI.