At the Madison County Commission’s April 9 meeting, Parks and Recreation Director Ryan Yates presented a report highlighting the expansion and growing popularity of rural recreation programs—and made a case for hiring an additional staff member to sustain that growth.

Thanks to increased funding in 2024 and 2025, the department now employs two recreation coordinators serving Districts One and Three.

Yates told the commission that these coordinators manage programming, including pickleball, fitness classes, volleyball camps, homeschool P.E., and open gym hours.

“Their primary job focus is to implement the schedule and advertise for recreational programs beyond our traditional youth athletics that we offer and make use of the recreation spaces that the county has when they’re not previously being occupied,” Yates said.

He also highlighted the affordability of the programs for area residents.

“Most of our programs are a dollar per person. We do offer some free 55 and older senior programs as well in some of our areas,” Yates shared.

According to Yates, in 2024, Madison County Parks and Rec had 3,940 kids participate in its five youth sports options at six facilities. At this point in 2025, 4,140 youth have signed up.

“We’ve actually increased, which is against the national trend. Most recreation youth sports are going down in participation nationwide at the recreation level as youth sports have become more privatized and gone into more of travel and club arenas,” Yates shared.

He continued, “We’re continuing to see growth through not only the great work of the boards but also through the great work of the commission for extending these services and the growth that the area is experiencing as well.”

To keep up with demand, Yates requested permission to hire a third coordinator—using funding already included in the 2025 budget. The additional staffer would allow the organization to expand to three program days per week in District Three and would double availability in District One.

Yates noted that several rental requests were recently turned down due to a lack of coverage.

“I’m here before you today requesting permission to hire an additional staff request that I had made to HR and the finance department. This one additional employee will not require any funding additional to what’s in the budget now in 2025. It’s already there,” Yates said.

Madison County Commission Chairman Mac McCutcheon praised the department’s progress and the impact on underserved age groups, particularly seniors.

“The commission is very supportive of our rec centers, and as we looked at this last year, we started moving forward with looking at the growth we’re having in the county versus the demand put on our rec centers and making them available to all of the public,” McCutcheon said.

However, he and the rest of the commission stopped short of approving the new hire on the spot, requesting time to review the report and revisit the request at the next meeting.

“Maybe we could come back in the next meeting and go ahead and move forward with the new position that you’re requesting. We need to look at the new budget coming forward too and how that’s going to affect the new budget in expenditure,” McCutcheon said.

Madison County District 4 Commissioner Phil Vandiver acknowledged the value of adding a position but pushed for a broader conversation.

“Commissioner, I don’t think one position’s a big deal for where we are right now, but I do think at some point us and the citizens that are involved in this, whether it’s the parents of the kids or the people using our rec centers, we need to decide what the future looks like for the recreation center of Madison County,” Vandiver said.

He continued, “Then we can start filling in the gaps and work to do that. We’ve got to determine what we want from a recreation program and then figure it out and not just take little stop-gap measures along the way.”

Despite these challenges, commissioners agreed that increased community involvement and facility use are signs of meaningful progress.