Orange residents could see the costs for renting out a field or taking a swimming lesson go up over the next few years, but city leaders are still wrestling with how much they want to raise the fees. 

The debate comes after city leaders were warned by an outside consultant that they could face bankruptcy before the end of the decade, a claim City Manager Jared Hildenbrand disputed last week.

Read: Orange On Track for Bankruptcy in Three Years Without ‘Radical’ Change

“We are not on the verge of bankruptcy in three years,” Hildenbrand said at the Sept. 9 council meeting. “The report does make one point unmistakably clear … business as usual in Orange is not sustainable.” 

While city leaders have already announced plans to start charging for parking near the downtown, they’re also looking at raising some of their permit and fee costs for the first time in over a decade. 

A recent study completed by the Matrix Consulting Group found the city is losing nearly $3 million a year from how much it’s charging residents on fees across the board. 

While it’s not uncommon for cities to subsidize the cost of parks and other community facilities, Orange hasn’t increased their fees in 15 years, charging just around $2 an hour to use city fields when it costs them around $38 per hour to maintain them. 

Across the board, the city is only charging around 25% of what it spends on providing services according to Khushboo Ingle, a vice president at Matrix Consulting. 

But dozens of residents came out on Tuesday night to oppose the potential fee increases for nearly an hour, when people highlighted concerns about access to baseball diamonds and swimming pools.

They also raised concerns on how the fee hikes could impact the city’s poorest residents.

“We need to keep in mind these are our recreational sports … many families cannot afford to pay for club or travel ball teams,” said Sharon McAleer, one of the board members for South Sunrise Little League. “These fee increases will price out our most vulnerable community members.”

City leaders are set to formally decide which programs could face fee hikes at their Oct. 28 meeting, but the majority of the city council made it clear on Tuesday night they would not be moving up to charging the full amount for services. 

Councilman John Gyllenhammer pointed out how most of the community groups using the fields are exclusively serving Orange residents, adding that local teams weren’t making a profit. 

“No one makes a dime,” Gyllenhammer said. “This is exactly what Orange should be. Having more of this, having youth sports grow, I think is healthy for Orange … I’d like to see us continue to subsidize this.” 

Gyllenhammer pitched moving the charges on fields from $2 an hour to $5 an hour, along with similar increases at other city facilities. 

Other council members pitched a phased approach, which would see costs increase gradually over the next few years until the city ends up recouping around half the cost of providing the services. 

“The last thing I’d want to do is put kids in need out because of money,” said Councilwoman Arriana Barrios. 

Councilwoman Ana Gutierrez brought up how her kids used to play as part of the South Sunrise Little League, and said it would be on city council members to “educate” community members on the price hikes while calling some of the higher fees “too drastic.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with subsidizing our kids,” Gutierrez said. “Lets take a tiered approach.” 

Councilman Jon Dumitru also brought up strong “sticker shock” on proposed hikes to the city’s swimming pool, and said that he was worried people would stop filing for permits if city leaders bumped the costs up too much. 

“I don’t want to gouge people just because we’re having issues.”

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.