Why Do The Public Pools in Grand Rapids Close Early For the Season?

Summer is my favorite season of the year- because as a southern transplant to Michigan, I spent so many summer days living in the water to stay cool. We didn't have Michigan's many lakes, so we couldn't enjoy swimming in my hometown unless our public pool was open. In my experience, pools are almost all open on Memorial Day Weekend and stay open all the way through Labor Day.

Moving to Grand Rapids, I noticed that our public pool season is much shorter than the national average. This year, for example, our pools opened on June 7th, and will be closed by August 17th. At first, I assumed it was because we generally have a shorter summer in the Great Lakes state, but upon further digging- I found out that weather has nothing to do with the shortened pool season in Grand Rapids.

Why is the swimming pool season so short in Grand Rapids?

It turns out- that while the weather is a factor, in recent years it's still been warm enough to swim during Labor Day weekend in Michigan. So, why we are missing out on prime pool time? It turns out that Grand Rapids pool season is entirely decided by the city budget.

I found an article from 2015 about how the city of Grand Rapids extended our pool season because we had the tax revenue to do so. The city has a set budget on how much they spend to keep the pools open (at the time, it was $10,000 a day) and that dictates how long the season is. Currently, we get 10 weeks of pool season, which is shorter than it was back in 2015.
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They also tend to close the pools earlier in the summer because many of the staff are students, and they have to go back to school- leaving the pools unstaffed (and largely empty) once Grand Rapids Schools and Colleges are back in session.

While it would be nice to enjoy the pools during labor day weekend, it's a reasonable reason that we close them down earlier- after all you never know when it's going to start being cold again in Michigan.