The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lifeguards in short supply
With only days left before one of the most popular beach weekends of the summer, state parks officials are scrambling to fill the last of about 80 lifeguard spots needed to fully staff its eight guarded swimming areas.
The department has so far hired about 70 lifeguards for the season, but still needs 10 to 20 more to be able to guard each of the swimming areas seven days a week, said state Parks Director Tom Tyler.
“Our hope is we’ll be able to recruit the last 10 to 15 people, but if not we’ll have to see where the numbers shake out,” he said. “It could range to only being able to guard on weekends or in an extreme case, there are areas where we may not be able to provide any guards.”
The state oversees 23 swimming areas, eight of which are guarded.
Right now, the parks most in need are Silver Sands State Park in Milford, Indian Wells State Park in Shelton and Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Tyler said. Each of those parks needs at least three or four more guards to sign up.
The beaches have so far been able to manage, given that most have reduced hours or are not very busy until the weekend before the Fourth of July, Tyler said. But, should they not reach full staff by then, the department will need to evaluate how to make do without a full work force.
The other five guarded swimming areas, like Squantz Pond State Park, should be in good shape for the summer, Tyler said, though the department is always looking for more lifeguards.
At Squantz, there are about six or seven lifeguards signed up so the park can get through seven days a week with a crew of at least four each shift.
“We are pretty confident at this point we’ll be able to continue with seven-day-aweek coverage at Squantz,” Tyler said. “That’s with the caveat, though, if two kids don’t quit next week.”
The lifeguard shortage is not unique to this year, nor to Connecticut, Tyler said. Across the country pools and beaches have struggled to find enough guards to get through the season.
Tyler said some of this is due to the fact that almost all of the state’s lifeguarding staff happen to be high school or college-age students who are more frequently looking for internships, classes or other ways to spend their summer.
“We certainly have seen a trend that you do have just a lower number of younger people who are looking for a full-time summer job,” he said. “They’re looking for something else and that creates pressure for recruiting.”
B.J. Fisher, director of health and safety at the American Lifeguard Association, agrees the shortage has been a national problem for years. He said an aging population and a growing number of pools that need lifeguards also contribute to the problem.
"Our baby boom is now retiring and we are building more and more swimming pools ... the beaches are getting more developed," said Fisher, who frequently hears from governments looking for advice on how to address the shortage.
But not all beaches seem to be feeling the strain. Milford Aquatics Director Rich Minnix said he hasn’t had a problem filling the 27-person lifeguard staff needed for its city beaches, one of which connects to Silver Sands.
“If they have to cut back on hours and swimming over there, we have beaches right next door,” Minnix said. “We’re more than welcoming over at Walnut Beach.”
The city’s beaches will switch from weekend hours to a full-time operation on July 1, he said.
Connecticut challenges
Tyler did say, though, that another factor made this year more difficult than others for the state.
Last year, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection was forced to reduce a lot of its staff and services due to budget cuts. Part of that included reducing lifeguard coverage to only a few days a week, meaning only about 50 lifeguards were needed for a full work force.
The department has been able to restore these services thanks to the new Passport to Parks program this year, which lets drivers with valid Connecticut license plates enter parks for free with an extra $10 to the cost of non-commercial vehicle registrations through the Department of Motor Vehicles.
So now, the department is trying to get its lifeguard program back to where it was before the cuts, Tyler said.
“We have the funding to put that in the place, it’s just the question of whether our recruiting efforts will be robust enough to get us there,” he said.
One new recruiting tool is an offer this year to provide free training to lifeguard applicants in the hopes it will increase those who choose to sign up.
The state previously required that applicants have the first level of lifeguard training, but would provide the second level.
Now, the state will give both levels of training for free.
About a dozen lifeguards took advantage of the new training option since it rolled out this spring, but Tyler said he expects a better turnout next year once word gets out about the new requirements.
“We hope it’s something that can grow,” he said. “We now know we can provide it reliably — and hopefully over time it can minimize these last-minute scrambles to give us some more bandwidth to get the adequate crews.” aquinn@newstimes.com