As Memorial Day weekend approaches, the city is still struggling to hire enough lifeguards. And it might ruin some New Yorkers’ plans: last year’s lifeguard shortage led to limited swimming hours or reduced capacity – at some of its beaches and pools.
The city has roughly a third of the lifeguards it needs to run all of its pools and beaches this summer, Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue confirmed on Monday during a budget hearing before the New York City Council’s parks committee.
On Monday, Donoghue said it currently has over 200 new recruits currently in training, and more than 280 returning lifeguards who are seeking recertification. The commissioner said she didn’t have an exact number but that this represented less than 500 — or roughly one-third — of the estimated 1,400 needed to operate all of the city’s public beaches and pools.
The city, Donoghue said, is aiming to have at least 900 working lifeguards by the time summer is in full swing. While the city’s public beaches officially open this weekend, public pools will open next month.
“The Council has been very committed to expanding pool access to all New Yorkers in the city,” Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the Committee on Parks and Recreation, said at the same hearing. “But we can’t do so if we don’t have the appropriate and adequate staffing across our pools and beaches.”
This is the second year in a row that the city is dealing with a lifeguard shortage. The shortage last year cut the hours that New Yorkers could spend at some of its pools and beaches, prompting the city to introduce a temporary pay bump and a new recruitment program in January. It could also impact a program aimed at senior swimmers.
“We’re fortunate that here in New York City, we were able to open all of our pools and beaches last summer,” Donoghue said. “We’re committed to doing that again this summer, but we are clearly still facing a very challenging hiring environment.”
Donoghue attributed the city’s struggles to a nationwide shortage occurring across the country.
Last month, the hourly pay for lifeguards increased from $16.10 to $21.26, and now includes a $1,000 bonus. The city is also bringing back free swimming lessons for kids.
The lagging hires come in the midst of budget negotiations over the upcoming 2024 fiscal year, which begins on July 1. The Adams administration is continuing to sound the alarm over the rapid influx of asylum-seekers into the five boroughs, which is set to cost the sanctuary city billions of dollars. The mayor is pushing for steep budget cuts across various city agencies, including parks.
In April, Adams released his most recent budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. It calls for $610.4 million to the Parks Department, a decrease of $36.9 million from the previous fiscal year, according to Krishnan.
“This is still nowhere near the 1% of the budget that Mayor Adams campaigned on, and explicitly promised,” Krishnan said. “We have seen reduction after reduction, and the loss of funding that we fought for last year in achieving the largest budget for our Parks Department in its history. Now, we are regressing and stepping backward.”
