Most of Indy Parks pools closed amid staffing shortage, maintenance issues
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis is coming up with new ways to open up their swimming pools. More than half have been closed due to staff shortages. This has made it harder for a lot of Hoosiers to escape the heat wave.
“It’s unfortunate, especially those that are so far out and I feel like some of the pools that you know, kids want to get to, and can’t because they’re not open,” Kachina Jones, an Indianapolis resident said.
There are 17 Indy Parks swimming pools, but now only five are open, including Frederick Douglass Park. According to city officials, a lifeguard shortage impacted a lot of these pools.
“It has to do partly with the pipeline of folks not really having the skills to swim,” the director of Indy Parks & Recreation, Phyllis Boyd, said.
“I have a lot of nieces and nephews that I have to go out, you know, to the far east side and the far west side to go pick and then it’s kind of, you know, hard to just travel especially with gas prices being so high,” Jones said.
Boyd says some people applied, but weren’t able to pass the certification test. The city is now seeking to hire dozens of lifeguards to open more pools.
“We’re thinking proactively about how we can help to build that pipeline, and what kind of programming we need to place to start working with middle schoolers, so that they’re ready to become lifeguards when they get into high school,” Boyd said.
Boyd said the program begins this fall, but details haven’t been provided yet.
City officials say they are looking at raising the salary for lifeguards. The city currently pays lifeguards $15 per hour. There’s also been maintenance issues at some of the pools, including Bethel Park that was recently open.
“The process of dewinterization takes a while to get started. You don’t know about the issues until the pool fills, and even then when you fill it the problems might not make themselves apparent until it’s been running for a few days,” Boyd said.
She adds some people are being turned away at the pools that are open because they get too crowded. Despite some challenges, residents like Kachina Jones remain hopeful.
“I wish; I hope they can find more lifeguards and things like that for these pools to open, so they have more fun and things like that,” Jones said.
Indy Parks wants people to remember that most of the splash pads are now open. There are 17 splash pads across the city.