January 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 39

he key descriptors of social justice are " equality " and " fairness. " In
recent years, the term has been extrapolated to a wide range of contexts, including environmental, race, gender and human exploitation.
However, in its earliest forms it primarily was concerned with income
inequality. In contemporary U.S. society, an explicit element of social justice
remains the redistribution of resources to those who are economically disadvantaged. Pricing strategies play a role in exacerbating or amending social injustice
in the context of parks and recreation.
Tension in public-sector pricing debates revolves around optimizing the two
guiding concepts of fairness: The Benefit Principle and the Ability to Pay Principle. The Benefit Principle states that residents or service users' contributions
should reflect the benefits they receive from a service. The Ability to Pay Principle states that the price or amounts of tax to be paid should reflect people's
different ability to pay and that, as much as possible, no residents should be
excluded from participating because they lack the funds to do so. The challenge
for public decision makers in arriving at a price perceived to be " fair " is how best
to reconcile these two principles.

Making the Ability to Pay Principle Operational
Not giving discounts to those who qualify as economically disadvantaged both
unjustly excludes residents from a service and forgoes revenues. The conventional view is that program discounts for low-income residents guided by the Ability
to Pay Principle inevitably result in trade-offs with the Benefit Principle, since
they reduce revenue and require more tax support.
However, Figure 1 (see pg. 38) illustrates this is often not the case, because lowincome residents have a different price elasticity than other groups. If a discount price
exceeds the cost of delivering a service, then this revenue - from those who would
not participate at the regular price - is a net gain. Consider the following example:
A large outdoor, public swimming pool that opens for the summer months
charges an admission price of $7 per person for those age 4 years or older. On
average, the pool receives 200 visits a day. Almost all its costs are fixed. For an
economically disadvantaged family of five, $35 for admission is not feasible,
so they are excluded. If a discounted price of $3 is made available, the family
of five pays $15. If the $3 price resulted in an additional 100 visits a day from
economically disadvantaged individuals, this would result in more than $2,000
a week in additional net revenue for the park and recreation agency.
In accordance with the Ability to Pay Principle, park and recreation agencies
could offer price discounts to four groups of potential users:
Low-Income Residents - Establishing a qualifying benchmark income level that defines a " poor " individual is controversial, requiring additional administrative steps to

W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G | J A N U A RY 2 02 0 |

Parks & Recreation

January 2020 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2020 - Parks & Recreation