{"id":217634,"date":"2026-03-13T05:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217634\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T05:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:06:09","slug":"city-raises-jr-lifeguard-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217634\/","title":{"rendered":"City raises Jr. Lifeguard fees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a public hearing, the council on March 9 approved a fee increase for the Seal Beach Junior Lifeguard Program. It was the last item on the March 9 agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No members of the public spoke during the public hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cost will now be $700 per a resident\u2019s first child and $675 per sibling. (The cost before the march 9 vote wasn\u2019t in the staff report but it was on the redlined fee schedule. The new fee is a change from $650 for a resident\u2019s first child and from $625 for that child\u2019s siblings.)<\/p>\n

The newly approved fee for non-residents would be $750 per non-resident\u2019s child and $710 per sibling. The council also amended the city\u2019s Cost Recovery Schedule to reflect the new fee.<\/p>\n

The vote was unanimous.<\/p>\n

The council also approved an amendment increasing the Junior Lifeguard budget for the current fiscal year by $17,500.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marine Safety Chief Joe Bailey told the council that Newport Beach charges $1,000 for their program. According to Bailey, other cities have shorter programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bailey acknowledged that the Junior Lifeguard program grew this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to have a 500-kid program, but the truth is, we have, on any given Wednesday, on this on a summer day, we have 20 Lifeguards working the beach and 20 Junior Lifeguard instructors. So at some point you get to an area where the tail is wagging the dog and it\u2019s hard to manage having more kids in the program,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n

Background<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Seal Beach Marine Safety Junior Lifeguard Program is a summer recreational and educational program serving youth between the ages of 9 through 17. The program consists of one (1) seven-week session conducted during the summer season,\u201d according to the staff report by Marine Safety Chief Joe Bailey.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticipant registration fees are intended to recover the full cost of program operations, including uniforms (shorts, shirt, hat, and backpack), instructional staff wages, field trips, equipment, and administrative expenses,\u201d Bailey wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn accordance with City policy, program fees are periodically evaluated to ensure alignment with actual program costs,\u201d Bailey wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the summer of 2025, program enrollment reached capacity earlier than anticipated, resulting in an increase in participant enrollment from 300 to 350 youth,\u201d Bailey wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo maintain appropriate supervision levels and program quality standards, additional instructional staff was required,\u201d Bailey wrote.<\/p>\n

According to Bailey\u2019s report, when the council increased the pay for part-time Marine Safety employees (on Oct. 13, 2025), that also added to the Junior Lifeguard Program\u2019s costs. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven these factors, a fee adjustment is necessary to ensure continued cost recovery and ensure the ongoing financial sustainability of the Junior Lifeguard Program,\u201d Bailey wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proposed fee amounts described below were determined after reviewing the City\u2019s overall cost of offering the program, including all labor costs and direct and indirect costs. Staff have determined that the fees do not exceed the cost of providing the service,\u201d Bailey wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a public hearing, the council on March 9 approved a fee increase for the Seal Beach Junior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-217634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}