Rock Hill, York County at odds over recreation after city approves fee hike
The Rock Hill City Council and York County Council are at odds about fee changes for recreational programs, which will take effect July 15 and nearly triple the cost for some users.
Approved unanimously on Monday night, the Rock Hill City Council increased charges for youth, adult and senior programs and blamed the York County Council’s recent decision to introduce a new form of the recreation tax.
“Our hands were tied, but we were forced back into the old system, in my opinion, which is why we need to move forward, and if things change in the future, we will look at it,” said council member Kevin Sutton.
According to Rock Hill’s spokesperson, Katie Quinn, the fee increases are due to the discontinuation of York County’s old recreation tax. The York County Council created a new countywide way to pay for recreation June 2.
Previously, people in and out of Rock Hill’s city limits paid the same program rates for over 20 years.
Now, the city projects it’ll lose $450,000 in recreation funding and passed higher fees for some to help make up the difference.
Rock Hill’s City Manager, David B. Vehaun, gave a presentation to the council during Monday’s meeting and explained the changes in fees.
“We had hoped that the county would see things differently as we moved into the new budget year, but they apparently are not going to change their minds on that,” Vehaun said. “What we had to do was look internally to see what kind of a fee structure we might have to put in place in order to recoup that $450,000.”
Council members Kevin Sutton, Perry Sutton, John A. Black III, Jim Reno and Brent Faulkenberry said the city had no other choice.
The city of Rock Hill is not driving the action Faulkenberry said. The Rock Hill council is responding to a situation they were forced into, he said.
“It’s easier to build strong children than repair broken men. And I feel like we are stepping away from that,” Perry Sutton said.
Rock Hill youth sports fee prices
The following are youth fee changes starting in the next season:
▪ Youth baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball and soccer will cost $135 for nonresidents, which is over double the $65 it will cost for residents to participate.
▪ Flag football will be $135 for nonresidents and $65 for residents. Tackle football will be $80 for residents and $150 for nonresidents.
▪ Outside of sports programs, there has also been a change in fees for summer camps, Fun in the Sun and Farewell Park Explorers. For camp Fun in the Sun, nonresidents will need to pay $800 per child, while residents will pay $600.
The adult programs in Rock Hill experienced the most significant price changes. Various tennis programs tripled in cost.
▪ Tennis drills and skills: residents $20, nonresidents $120
▪ Tennis level up: residents $20, nonresidents $120
▪ Tennis individual membership: residents $250, nonresidents $750
▪ Tennis family membership: residents $375, nonresidents $1,125
▪ Tennis senior individual membership: residents $125, nonresidents $375
▪ Tennis senior family membership: residents $200, nonresidents $600
To determine whether participants are classified as residents or nonresidents, York County offers a property search tool on its website, Quinn said.
Some community members came out during the public forum section of Monday’s meeting to speak on behalf of the tennis program participants and organizers of Rock Hill’s program.
Robert Weiner of Fort Mill spoke as one of the organizers of the 90 seniors who play at Rock Hill’s tennis facility three times a week.
According to Weiner, a large portion of the participants do not live in Rock Hill and cannot afford, nor want to pay, the new price of $375 to be part of the program moving forward.
“It will damage or destroy our program if this happens,” Weiner said.
Discrepancies across the county
The disagreement between York County and Rock Hill focuses on reimbursements.
Vehaun said during Monday’s meeting the York County Council claims it will reimburse an amount for “traditional youth sports,” but not for any other programs the city offers. But there’s no clear definition of traditional youth sports and other unanswered questions, Vehaun told the City Council.
“We don’t really have any idea to make even a best guess of what we would expect to be reimbursed for the very narrow and small programs that they will do,” Vehaun said.
However York County’s spokesperson, Greg Suskin, said that the county offered cities a $100 stipend for every child living outside city limits who wanted to play sport. Instead of taking the stipend and keeping the fees the same, Rock Hill chose to raise the rates for the out of city participants, according to Suskin.
According to Quinn the council never made clear as to who they were planning to reimburse or if they were going to do it from the beginning.
Quinn said that Rock Hill has not received any official communication related to the reimbursements or stipends which is why they are unable to make any decisions regarding future programming or fees at this time. Quinn also urged any non-city residents to contact the county directly if seeking clarification on the matter.
During Mondays meeting, Vehaun told the council that he received a letter from the county about the changes that morning.
York County recreation tax
For 20 years, participants that lived outside of city limits paid a small tax towards the city recreational programs. That was because a large portion of kids who live outside cities played in municipal sports programs due to lack of opportunities.
This tax sum is used to fund access to the municipal parks as well as recreational programs such as youth and adult sports.
According to the county, the recreation tax was implemented in 2005 and has generated over $1 million annually for the county.
But the county’s rapid growth has produced population increases in York County municipalities outside of Rock Hill, too.
“Over 20 years obviously the county has grown by leaps and bounds and the county dramatically changed. That was an outdated system, and that recreation tax money was not based on the number of kids in these programs, it was not data driven and that’s what the county wanted to do,” said Suskin about the recreation tax change.
This story was originally published July 9, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
