Participation isn't declining. DPR is declining to serve participants. 1,300 on waitlist Ms. Rudolph admitted in the session: DPR once offered 200–300 rec gymnastics sections per year at Barcroft. Today that number has been cut roughly in half. Fewer sections means fewer enrollment slots, which means lower revenue — and worse cost recovery numbers.

59 classes cancelled in FY25. 51 classes cancelled in FY26. 100+ cancelled in FY22. Each cancellation reduces enrollment, which reduces revenue, which makes cost recovery look worse.

DPR also distorted the relationship between rec and competitive programs. In reality, team coaches also coach rec classes, and rec coaches fill in as subs for team practices — they all work together. Competitive coaching isn’t taking resources from rec; the same coaches support both programs. The staffing crisis is a management failure, not a program design flaw.

These programs are one ecosystem. Rec feeds into competitive. Competitive feeds into adaptive. Roughly 75% of the volunteers for the adaptive program are high-level Tigers and Aerials athletes — the remainder are DPR staff. Eliminating competitive doesn’t just affect team families — it collapses the volunteer pipeline that makes adaptive gymnastics possible.

Out of an 8-page, 27-question survey designed to measure broad community sentiment across all parks and recreation, DPR staff drew a conclusion to eliminate gymnastics. Here's how:

The survey was never designed to evaluate gymnastics. Gymnastics appears in exactly 2 line items out of 27 questions. In the facilities section, it's buried inside "Gyms (basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, pickleball, etc.)" — lumped with sports that share nothing in common with it. In the programs section, it's 1 of 25 options rated on a generic satisfaction scale. No follow-up. No depth. No context.

The "pick your top 4" design guarantees low rankings. Questions 14 and 17 force respondents to choose their 4 most important from lists of 29 facilities and 25 programs. Any specialized program — gymnastics, adaptive sports, teen programs — is structurally guaranteed to rank low against broad categories like "fitness" and "trails." That's survey design, not community preference.

Zero questions about what actually matters. The survey never asks about: competitive vs. recreational programs, coaching quality or staffing, willingness to pay higher fees, waitlist experiences, satisfaction with DPR's management of specific programs, or whether any program should be reduced or eliminated. DPR took the absence of a top-4 ranking and turned it into justification for a $969K elimination.

Two Board members flagged the same problem — this is a budget conversation, and you can't talk about demand without talking about investment: Board Member Spain Sr. went further, explicitly requesting cost comparisons across programs alongside survey demand percentages — the exact analysis DPR never presented.

The slide header calls this survey "statistically valid" — but no n-value, no respondent count, and no segmentation were presented. We don't know how many people received it, how many responded, or how respondents were selected. You cannot claim statistical validity without disclosing these fundamentals.

The survey also never asks about DPR's management. While 25 activities get generic satisfaction scores, zero questions ask whether residents are satisfied with DPR's staffing, coaching, leadership, or operational decisions for any specific program. DPR's management failures — the staffing crisis, the coaching exodus, the waitlist neglect — are structurally invisible in this survey. You can't hold a department accountable for mismanagement if you never ask about it.

Here's why it matters: a demand signal only means something relative to the investment behind it. If the county spends millions on fitness and aquatics marketing but near-zero promoting gymnastics — then compares survey results side by side — the 5% doesn't reflect demand. It reflects awareness. Underfund a program, don't promote it, then cite low survey interest as proof no one wants it. That's not data — that's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Look at what else sits at the bottom of the PSMP alongside gymnastics: programs serving youth and community members with disabilities. Ms. Rudolph's implication that low-ranking PSMP categories don't warrant support puts some of the county's most vulnerable populations on the chopping block.

Separately, the FY2027 Budget Survey excluded gymnastics entirely — residents were never even asked whether these programs should be cut. That's what our FOIA request is investigating.

📋 See the full survey

Community analysis using actual Aerials & Tigers registration data from DPR's own system shows the full picture: Critical: These numbers count only Gym 1&2. DPR did not report usage for the fitness center, wellness studio, or boxing room at all. Including those three rooms would push Barcroft usage significantly higher.

DPR split Gym 1 and Gym 2 into separate line items instead of reporting combined usage. Teams and rec flow between both gyms — separating them creates an artificially low picture.

And the comparison is apples to oranges: Barcroft is 28,000 sq ft while Lubber Run is 53,165 sq ft — nearly twice the size. Raw headcounts without normalizing for facility size is misleading by design.

Calling gymnastics equipment a limitation is like saying basketball hoops restrict a gym's flexibility. The equipment IS the program.

The cost recovery collapse tracks exactly with DPR's staffing crisis:

• Offer fewer sections (from 200–300/year down to roughly half) → fewer enrollment slots
• Can't hire instructors → cancel even more classes
• Cancel classes → fewer enrollments
• Fewer enrollments → less revenue
• Less revenue → worse cost recovery
• Worse cost recovery → "see, it's failing"

Meanwhile, Arlington rec fees are ~50% of private market rate. There's enormous room for fee increases while remaining affordable.

Classes run 5-6 kids with 2-3 coaches. USA Gymnastics allows 6:1 (preschool) and 8:1 (school-age). Efficient scheduling alone could dramatically increase capacity.

The budget numbers were confusing by design. DPR spread financials across three slides mixing FY25 and FY27 figures — with FY26 completely omitted. Arlington's fiscal year ends June 30 — at the time of this presentation, the county was 8 months into FY26 with budget actuals readily available. Yet DPR skipped the current year entirely and jumped straight to FY27 projections. No single slide showed how the $969K was built.

During the work session, Board Member Maureen Coffey asked Ms. Rudolph to explain how DPR arrived at the $2.3M in expenses and $1.3M in revenue shown on Slide 15 that produced the $969K figure. Ms. Rudolph did not answer the question. Instead, she redirected Coffey to Slides 20 and 23 — which only contain data from FY16–FY25 and have zero relevance to the FY27 projections Coffey was asking about.

Coffey, recognizing the numbers didn't add up, stated: “I will dive deeper when we're not doing live math.”

Meanwhile, DPR's own detailed slides tell a different story: $715,467 Competitive gap: $312,129 (Slide 20)
Rec gap: $403,338 (Slide 23)

Where is the missing $254,075? This isn't a rounding error — it's 26% of the claimed savings, unaccounted for in the very slides DPR presented to the Board.

Ms. Rudolph directed a Board member to slides that couldn't answer her question. The $969K figure — the entire basis for eliminating gymnastics — was never explained to the Board.

Ms. Rudolph herself admitted: You can't use a model you've admitted is broken to justify a $969K decision.

The pyramid also misclassifies competitive gymnastics. It treats it identically to adult fitness memberships — ignoring that competitive teams feed rec enrollment, supply coaching staff, and build the community that produced 5,000+ petition signatures. The cost recovery model evaluates each program in isolation, but these programs function as one ecosystem: rec feeds into competitive, and roughly 75% of the adaptive program’s volunteers are high-level Tigers and Aerials athletes. You can’t measure the value of competitive without accounting for what it makes possible.

Rec gymnastics is also misclassified. DPR placed it at Level 4 ("mostly individual benefit," 86–100% target), but by the county's own definitions, rec gymnastics fits Level 3 — programs with shared community and individual benefit — which carries a lower cost recovery target. Reclassifying rec to Level 3 immediately changes the math on the entire "deficit."

Years ago, DPR committed to outlining separate fee structures for the boys and girls competitive programs. They still haven't done it. This pattern of incomplete follow-through has compounded year over year — and now the Board is being asked to make a permanent decision based on data shaped by that neglect.

AAPA/ATPA project FY26 revenue at ~$725K, putting cost recovery at ~74%. DPR never asked families if they'd pay more. Never communicated cost recovery goals. Never floated ideas. Never conducted any outreach to the community about these programs. Last discussion with AAPA was 2+ years ago.

How many DPR programs have constituents volunteering to pay more?