The Bainbridge Island Teen Center will live to see another year.

In a board meeting late last week, the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park & Recreation District decided it couldn’t justify cutting what has become an island staple for Bainbridge youth from next year’s budget.

“This is a real emotional topic, it is for everybody and for the alumni,” said Terry Lande, executive director of the district.

Facing tight finances, the district had previously planned to cut the $40,000 cost of the center from next year’s budget and instead allocate $10,000 for teen outreach.

The cut would have meant closing the doors to the center, which is located next door to Bainbridge High School, and eliminating several staff positions.

It would have also meant removing a key gathering space for both students involved in after-school activities and students who have nowhere else to socialize.

“We don’t get the number of participants that we did 5, 10, 15 years ago,” said Shannon Buxton, the program manager for the center.

“That being said, I think it is still a part of a lot of kids’ lives, and a pretty big part of a few. So numbers go down, but those numbers have names.”

The loss of the center, Buxton added, would not only upset alumni and families, but the youth involved would feel betrayed.

“There are a handful that we see every single day for hours at a time,” Buxton said.

“For whatever reason those kids don’t feel that they have a lot of support elsewhere, and so the fact that we’ve got our porch light on when it starts to get dark, and there’s an adult there, and it’s warm, and there’s somebody that will listen to them or leave them alone, depending, is a pretty protective factor for those kids.”

“Because they certainly could be making a different choice,” she said.

The board agreed.

“For any of us that have been involved in this, trying to put a dollar figure on kids’ participation is the worst thing we get to do in this business,” Lande said.

Notwithstanding, the cost of keeping the center alive has become one of the district’s most expensive and, subsequently, also most subsidized programs.

Wages are determined by $10 per participant per hour. Additionally, the building location requires the district to pay a higher utility rate.

“So even if we only flush the toilet once, it’s going to be the same amount, about $450 a month,” said John DeMeyer of the district.

The building also has roof and deck projects awaiting completion but have been postponed while the board deliberated removing the program from the budget.

Ending a program the district has invested years’ worth of funds and that supports at-risk youth, though, didn’t sit well with the district’s board of commissioners last week.

“These are the kids that haven’t found another place and they’re at risk. We are supposed to be about community. And we’ve been talking about $40,000 on a dog park,” added Park Commissioner Lee Cross.

“I like dogs a lot,” she said.

“And I like kids,” responded Park Commissioner Tom Swolgaard.

Park Commissioner Kirk Robinson agreed with Cross and Swolgaard that spending $40,000 on a dog park but not on a long-time center for Bainbridge youth seemed illogical.

“If that core is 5 or 10 or 15 people that you said would be pissed off and you said would be betrayed, what’s the societal cost going to be to the community as a whole, based on how they might act out after something like this is taken away,” Robinson asked.

“It might be nothing, but it might be something significant if they get caught in the justice system, get caught in the health system for a variety of reasons and so on,” he said.