By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City has kept the price of beach tags the same since 2011. Not so for 2024.
Trips to the beach will be more expensive starting next summer following a 5-0 vote Tuesday by City Council to raise the cost of seasonal, weekly and daily tags by $5 each.
Seasonal tags that are good for the entire summer will rise from the current price of $25 to $30. Sea Isle offers a discount on seasonal beach tags if they are bought before May 15. The discounted price will increase from $20 to $25.
Weekly beach tags will increase from the current price of $10 to $15 and dailies will double from $5 to $10.
Revenue generated by beach tag sales is an important source of funding. It covers the cost of keeping the beaches clean, collecting the trash, employing lifeguards and hiring summer police officers. The revenue also helps to pay for Sea Isle’s share of beach replenishment projects done in partnership with federal and state agencies.
“Everything has gone up and continues to go up,” Mayor Leonard Desiderio said in an interview about the rising cost of maintaining the beaches.
Noting that this will be the first price increase since 2011, Desiderio said Sea Isle’s beach tags will still be cheaper than some neighboring communities.
Beach tag revenue is usually in the $1.3 million to $1.4 million range annually for Sea Isle. For the summer of 2023, it came in at $1.3 million, a slight drop from $1.319 million for the same period in 2022, according to Sea Isle’s chief financial officer Jennifer McIver.
Sea Isle’s all-time record for beach tag sales was set in 2015 with $1,471,321 in revenue.
Sea Isle's beaches draw big crowds in the summer.
It is not yet clear how much in additional beach tag revenue the city expects to generate through the price increase. Desiderio said that figure will be known when Sea Isle proposes its 2024 municipal operating budget early next year.
Beach tags are required in Sea Isle from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Children under the age of 12 are allowed on the beach for free.
Sea Isle also has a special program for military veterans and active-duty servicemen and women. Complimentary weekly beach tags are given to eligible active-duty military personnel and their families. Veterans are eligible for one complimentary seasonal beach tag.
For more than 25 years, Sea Isle has also offered a perk to beachgoers by not charging them for beach tags on Wednesdays. Throughout the summer, Wednesdays are the one day of the week when Sea Isle’s beaches are free.
The free beach days on Wednesdays traditionally are popular with day-trippers, church groups, youth summer camps and other organizations looking to save money.
Sea Isle’s beachfront stretches for 4½ miles from First Street to 94th Street. The city is awaiting the start of a beach replenishment project to restore sections of the dunes and shoreline damaged by coastal storms in recent months. The most recent blow came from the rough surf, high winds and drenching rain from Tropical Storm Ophelia.
In another 5-0 vote Tuesday, City Council introduced a $3.2 million bond ordinance to pay for Sea Isle’s share of a beach replenishment project that will be done in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
According to plans, 252,000 cubic yards of fresh sand will be placed in central Sea Isle from about 29th Street to 53rd Street. Another 388,000 cubic yards of new sand will restore the beach in the south end from about 73rd Street up to Townsends Inlet.
A line of dunes at John F. Kennedy Boulevard is sheared away by Tropical Storm Ophelia.
A contract for the beach replenishment project – which also includes Strathmere and the southern end of Ocean City – is expected to be awarded by the Army Corps this week. No announcement has been made yet when the work will start.
“We won’t know a project schedule until the contract is in place, but it’s good news that the award by the federal government is imminent,” Desiderio said.
Desiderio noted that Sea Isle’s share of the cost of the project depends on exactly how much new sand is placed on the eroded beaches. The city’s $3.2 million contribution could change once the project is done, he said.
Sea Isle originally estimated its share of the project would be around $2 million. However, the city revised its capital plan to increase the estimate to $3.2 million following the erosion caused by Ophelia and other storms.
“As everyone knows, over the past couple of months we’ve suffered from significant erosion, which is the basis of our revised cost share,” Desiderio said.
