Menu

Municipal Golf - Sustainable Funding Solution
The City of Rochester is working with Minnesota-based provider Morris-Leatherman who will conduct a telephone survey of up to 500 randomly selected community members. This includes an oversampling to gain a representative population of the golfing community. It is anticipated the survey will begin September 28, 2022 and continue into early October. The City and the Parks & Recreation Department encourage community members to answer the call if selected as a part of the random sample.
There will also be an opt-in opportunity for the entire community, provided via the Polco digital survey channel, to answer the same questions. City teammates and the survey provider will provide a summary report of the engagement activities and outcomes with the Park Board on November 1, 2022 and during a City Council Study Session on November 28, 2022.
The City Council resolution, previously referenced, asked for the exploration of the following for the City’s golf program:
- Maintain existing complement of courses and develop a strategy to fund the recommended $722,500 per year to support the Capital Improvement Projects and the appropriate level of annual operating support, as well as the cost of additional operations needed (e.g. maintenance staffing, marketing, other service level enhancements) to maintain the complement of courses, and better preserve the value of new investment in an improved system.
- Optimize the Rochester Municipal Golf System by repositioning a course and a) evaluate the opportunities and challenges associated with repositioning each, and b) identify high-level future uses for each, and c) assess the long-term financial impact associated with maintaining or repositioning each.
- Maintain the existing complement of courses with the current level of funding and identify service and user experience reductions needed overtime.
Since the resolution was passed, the recommended fund strategy, to support a sustainable golf operation, has been modified to be $500,000 a year. $100,000 of that would be for annual operations and $400,000 of that would be for annual Capital Improvement Projects across the golf system. Additional information and updates can be found on the Municipal Golf Project webpage.
In 2021, the actual percentage of your property taxes going to the City of Rochester was just under 36%. The City of Rochester uses this funding to provide services such as Public Safety, Parks & Recreation and Public Works.
As you may know, the City of Rochester owns and operates four municipal golf courses. After an evaluation, all of these courses need to complete deferred maintenance, capital improvement projects and have increased operational needs. The estimated cost increase for these project is about $500,000 a year.