AMHERST — A significant drop in revenue from sports leagues run by Amherst Recreation, and a smaller fall-off in money brought in from summer camps, is prompting the municipal department to examine ways to counter the funding loss.

In a state of the department report presented last Wednesday, Recreation Director Rey Harp told the Recreation Commission that various ideas will be pursued, including program marketing, adding promotions and offering discounts.

“The biggest one here is program marketing,” Harp said. He explained that would involve someone in the organization whose role will be to get the numbers up.

The report comes as the number of participants in all Amherst Recreation programs has dropped in recent years after recovering in the post-pandemic to 19,303 in fiscal year 2023. Since then, the number of participants has dropped to 17,820 in fiscal year 2024 and 16,977 in fiscal year 2025.

Harp said the structural model to support Amherst Recreation has been a combination of sports leagues that it runs, such as lacrosse and basketball, and sports camps, which typically operate for a week and include clinics and teaching fundamentals.

The sports leagues tend to attract youth who expect they will eventually be competing at the high school level. “It’s a feeder for ARPS (Amherst Regional Public Schools) athletics,” Harp said.

But this is where he said the department is showing “a major fall in revenue,” a 38% decline from $138,000 in fiscal year 2024 to $86,000 in fiscal year 2025.

Part of this was offset by putting the swimming program Amherst United in the sports leagues, but the basketball, lacrosse, Ultimate and football leagues have shown declines.

In fact, the dwindling numbers who are playing football meant Amherst Recreation going to a coop model, partnering with Belchertown and Granby.

The one sport that is growing is volleyball, which Harp said has been most reliable for growth participation in offerings, especially among girls.

Less concerning are the summer camps, with revenue dropping from $74,000 to $58,907, though there is still a 20% summer camp enrollment drop and general summer registrations going down.

Registration statistics show ACE Tennis participation dropped from 167 to 101, and Level Up and Complete Player basketball fell from 52 to 23. Volleyball, however, rose from 19 to 30.

Recreation Commission members said they would like to see more specific numbers before providing advice.

Mary Klaes said she has a number of ideas she could float. “I think getting more information would be helpful for me to help you and the Amherst Recreation department,” Klaes said.

Klaes suggested running tournaments, which Harp said has been explored and would bring more high schoolers into participation in youth sports.

Chris Pariseau said there could be more effort to draw participants from the after-school program Amherst Recreation runs.

Josh Broadhilt said he would like to know the context of a declining population, and how does sign-up in specific sports relate to this.

He supported Harp’s idea of trying to encourage youth to try out more different sports.

“I think the idea of a free ‘try-it’ thing is a really good way to get kids out,” Broadhilt said.