The Post Falls City Council continued the conversation Tuesday over Little League and legion fees for using city baseball fields.  

Prior to the meeting, league president Chris Perkins said the appeal over fees comes amid the group's 50th anniversary. 

“There is so much to be proud of. Our league is growing. We are winning district championships,” Perkins said.  

He was unable to attend the last council meeting with other league families, but estimated the annual costs range from $4,000 to $12,000.

Perkins shared invoices with The Press, including a 2023 record showing a potential bill of up to $14,000 in field fees.  

However, that record reflected a discrepancy between the times initially reserved and booked and those actually billed for, Director of Parks and Recreation Kris Ammerman said.  

“What they were actually charged for is included in our invoice software and it aligns with the workbook I get my figures from,” Ammerman said.  

Little League's total charges for the 2023 season came to $7,535, but because of field improvements using in-kind labor and materials, $4,007 was deducted, bringing the actual cost to about $3,500.  

For reference, the 2025 fees to use about seven baseball fields came out to about $5,000 before improvements to offset costs.  

Little League fees were reduced by 50% and the league had priority for field use. 

Parks Manager Bryan Myers noted during his presentation Tuesday that Post Falls Little League accounts for about 55% of the current field use for city baseball fields. 

In the 2020 estimates included in the Quarry Sports Complex Master Plan, the city found that the annual operational cost of five city baseball fields came to about $94,000. 

“Playing that out to see where we’re at today, we’re at about 250-300 hours for just mowing operations,” Meyers said. 

City planning includes one field per 3,750 residents, and the five current fields in demand are at Corbin Park, Chase South, Chase North, Brett James Memorial Field and 19th Street. 

Mayor Randy Westlund asked for clarity that $94,000 was the cost of mowing maintenance for the five fields used for Little League and Myers confirmed the figure. 

“That's a lot of money for maintaining a field, that’s a big number,” Westlund said. 

Myers said Brett James Memorial Field gets the most use, but because of a land use agreement with neighbors confining use to certain hours, the most in-demand field is not utilized to its full potential in terms of revenue. 

Per acre, Myers said Post Falls averages spending $3,800-3,700 on developed park land right now and national averages are in the neighborhood of $7,000-8,000 an acre.  

“We're driving some pretty competitive operational costs compared to our peers, but it is not a small number to maintain five fields,” Myers said. 

Coeur d’Alene Little League pays about $4,000 per year as part of its MOU with the city of Coeur d’Alene and Rathdrum teams largely use the Lions Club facility, Myers said.

Because the Hayden league has a unique donation situation, it is largely independent from city fees, Myers noted. 

Myers said if there were more full-sized fields for tournament use, that could eventually prove to be a sizable source of funds to better match the cost of maintenance. 

“It's part of the game in trying to make this work; there are other sites that will happen in the next five years that we may be able to look at as well,” Myers said.   

City Councilor Nathan Ziegler said the breakdown of figures and related information for neighboring cities made him feel more confident in the city’s MOU after the initial response from the Post Falls Little League. 

“According to what we’re seeing here, we’re treating them more than fairly for the usage of our city fields,” Ziegler said.