On Aug. 6, a Boulder Reporting Lab photographer shot the child care room at East Boulder Community Center with nobody in it. That room sums up the logic of the Parks and Recreation section in Boulder's 2027 budget. The city's own budget book gives "underutilization of program" as the reason for ending child watch there, while the same service at North Boulder Recreation Center "remains at current service levels."
City Council passed the $552.6 million budget 7-1 on Oct. 15, with a $6.3 million General Fund gap to close. Almost every recreation cut follows the same pattern as East Boulder's child watch. The city kept the busy hours, busy pools and busy rooms, and cut the slow ones. If you swim in October, use a recreation center on weekend mornings, or like the calmer outdoor pool, 2027 will look different for you. If you swim at Scott Carpenter in July, it may hardly change at all.
The budget book reads like a usage map
The Parks and Recreation reductions are listed line by line in the city's 2027 budget book. Nearly every line names what it protects or why the service was chosen.
| Line item | 2027 reduction | What the city says it keeps or why |
|---|---|---|
| Scott Carpenter Pool lap-pool shoulder season and leisure-pool changes | $165,000 | Lap-pool shoulder season shortened, leisure-pool operations changed |
| Spruce Pool ongoing operations | $133,889 | "Based on usage data and funding availability" |
| Indoor swim and leisure-pool hours | $50,000 | Core aquatics programming and peak-use swim hours stay |
| East Boulder Community Center child watch | $40,927 | North Boulder child care stays at current levels |
| North Boulder Rec Center front desk, non-standard staffing | $40,000 | No public hours change specified |
| Boulder Reservoir seasonal in-service training | $25,000 | No public schedule change specified |
| Seasonal drop-in fitness classes | $11,800 | Spread across facilities |
The same page also shows the costs that made these cuts necessary. Raising seasonal pay to meet the city minimum wage adds $469,904. Gas and electric charges for recreation operations go up $270,447. Pool chemicals add $54,904 for inflation. Those three increases alone are larger than every service reduction in the table combined. Visitation is not growing fast enough to cover them either. Jackson Hite, senior manager of business services for Parks and Recreation, told Boulder Reporting Lab that visitation had flattened in 2026 compared with 2025 and 2024.
When a department runs short and every pool hour costs more to keep open, the first hours to go are the ones with the fewest people in the water.
Where the quiet hours sit on today's schedule
"Lower-demand periods" sounds vague in a budget, but Boulder Reporting Lab was specific. The indoor pool reductions apply before Memorial Day and after Labor Day, when the city says use drops. Drop-in classes were chosen by participation, time of day and overlap with other offerings. The budget doesn't say which pools lose hours, how many hours, or which classes are cut. It does say the changes start in the 2027 fiscal year, which begins Jan. 1.
Here is how the city's pages list the schedule today. These are the hours most likely to be adjusted:
- East Boulder Community Center: The pool area is open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekends. Leisure-pool open swim runs 4:30 to 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday it adds a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. block.
- North Boulder Recreation Center: The pool area is open 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekends. The leisure pool runs 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays. The lap pool and hot tub closed for maintenance on Aug. 1, and the facility page gives Nov. 2 as a tentative reopening date.
- South Boulder Recreation Center: The pool area is open 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekends. Extra open-swim space and the diving board are available 1 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
Child watch shows the off-peak pattern most clearly. North Boulder offers it Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. East Boulder offers it only on Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to noon. The program serves children ages 2 to 10, and a parent or guardian has to stay in the building. The cut takes away the only weekend-only child watch in the system, at the center with the shorter schedule. For an East Boulder family, the remaining choice is North Boulder on a weekday or Saturday morning. Child watch is included with a family or youth pass, or you can pay the $9 youth entry fee currently posted.
Scott Carpenter keeps its summer and loses part of its fall
Scott Carpenter Pool has the largest single cut, $165,000, and it is aimed at the lap pool's shoulder season and at leisure-pool operations. Boulder Reporting Lab described the result as a season four weeks shorter. Parks and Recreation director Ali Rhodes explained the decision plainly: "While people love it, the visitation does not equal what it costs to actually operate the facility."
The shoulder season was already a reduced schedule. Under an earlier city notice on seasonal closures, the leisure pool switched to weekends only starting Wednesday, Aug. 13. Lap swimming moved to short course on Aug. 29. Shoulder hours of 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. started Sept. 2 and were set to run through September, weather and staffing permitting. Those September afternoons are the stretch the 2027 cut goes after. The city hasn't published 2027 opening and closing dates, so the exact weeks are still unknown.
Spruce Pool, funded one year at a time
Spruce Pool in the Whittier neighborhood is the extreme version of the same logic. The budget gives it $133,889 in one-time money for 2027. It also records an ongoing reduction of the same amount, labeled "Spruce Pool Closure based on usage data and funding availability." City staff estimate that running it in 2028 would cost $140,000. Its costs have been higher than its revenue since 2023, and the gap reached $83,000 in 2024. In 2025, Spruce closed weeks early. The Save Spruce Pool group says this past season's weekday hours ended Aug. 11, with weekend swimming through Labor Day.
Spruce's low attendance is the reason it is at risk, and for its regulars it is also the reason they come. Longtime swimmer Lynn Stein, who has been organizing other swimmers, told Boulder Reporting Lab that Spruce draws smaller crowds than Scott Carpenter, which makes it a better fit for less competitive swimmers, seniors and residents with disabilities.
"If the pool sits unused for a year, it's likely to be very hard to reopen."
Stein made that point in the same report, as advocates met with Parks and Recreation staff about revenue ideas, independent fundraising and finding more lifeguards. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board voted 5-2 on Sept. 28 against recommending the department's budget. Board chair Andrew Bernstein said it was the first time since he joined in 2023 that the board had declined to do so, and he named Spruce as a core objection. After the public hearing, Mayor Aaron Brockett said, as Boulder Reporting Lab reported, that "one-time funding does not mean that there's an intention to close it in 2028."
Who pays more, and who doesn't
The same approach shows up in fees. Boulder Reporting Lab reported that the department is not planning significant changes to resident recreation center or pool passes. The city's fee page currently lists a standard monthly membership at $72 for residents and $87 for nonresidents. An adult 10-visit pass is $129 for residents and $139 for nonresidents.
The changes fall on two narrower groups. The extra charge nonresidents pay for fitness classes rises from 15% to 20%. Residents in the city's financial aid program, who now get free facility access, would pay 25% of the cost, with the city covering the other 75%. The separate 50% discount on certain programs, up to $500 a year, continues. The department provided about $930,000 in aid in 2025, covering roughly 77,000 visits, and projected that cost would reach $1.2 million in 2026. If your household uses the program, the city's financial aid application page is the place to check how the 2027 terms apply to you.
Why the Nov. 3 bond doesn't change the 2027 schedule
Voters decided on Nov. 3 whether to approve the $400 million Recreation and Safety Bond. The city has said it plans to use the money for projects including a $65 million replacement of South Boulder Recreation Center, and $72 million for North Boulder Rec Center maintenance and moving the West Age Well Center.
The bond can pay for buildings. It can't pay to keep a pool open. Bond money can't be used for day-to-day operations, so whatever the result, the hour and staffing cuts above stay in the 2027 budget. Rhodes expects that clearing the repair backlog would free up operating money over time. City staff told Boulder Reporting Lab that Boulder spends $11 per square foot maintaining aging buildings, compared with an industry standard of $5 per square foot for buildings in good condition. Any relief from that would show up in later budgets, not in next year's pool hours.
Before the new year, a few things are worth checking:
- If your swim time falls between Labor Day and Memorial Day, compare the January indoor schedules at East, North and South with the hours listed above.
- If you use East Boulder's weekend child watch, look into North Boulder's Monday-through-Saturday hours.
- Ask at the front desk which drop-in classes are being cut before you buy a punch card around one class.
- Watch for Scott Carpenter and Spruce's 2027 season dates once the city posts them.
If you're weighing a move across town and want to know how your routines would change, from which rec center is closest to which pool keeps its shoulder hours, The Bernardi Group can walk you through it block by block. Start Your Strategy Session.
