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The financially troubled city-owned RedGate Golf Course received a small nudge forward Monday night when the City Council voted to instruct staff to look into outsourcing the operation and management of the course.

The golf course, which is entering the fourth year of a five-year business plan to improve financial performance, has been losing money for the past decade, according to a staff report.

For its first 25 years, up to 1999, RedGate had been making enough money to cover its costs. But since 2000 it has ended with a negative fund balance and needed a transfer of money from the general fund. Since 2000, more than $1.1 million has been transferred from the general fund to cover the gap.

Several options were presented to the council, including maintaining the status quo of an informal subsidy to the course from the general fund, creating a formal subsidy, and closing and selling the course.

The council voted 4-1 in favor of exploring ways to outsource the operation and management of the course, with Councilwoman Bridget D. Newton voting against.

She said an option that was not presented to the council was moving the course from being a separate enterprise fund to within the general fund to better compare its performance to other community facilities, like the Rockville Swim Center.

Mayor Phyllis R. Marcuccio, a former golfer herself, said she would rather be looking at options for increasing revenues on the course rather than how to get the money-losing facility off the city's hands.

"I think we have dropped the ball terribly in trying to protect this property and make it work," she said. "You've got to think in terms of what you've got and how to improve it."

Burt Hall, director of recreation and parks, said the course faces unique challenges that other enterprise funds, like the water and sewer funds, do not face.

The course is competing against the nine courses operated by the Montgomery County Revenue Authority, he said.

Rounds played in fiscal 2009 dropped by 11 percent from fiscal 2008, or by 4,500 rounds, while the dollars spent per round have remained basically flat for several years.

The result is the course has been operating in the red since 2000, with fiscal 2009 being the worst year of the decade, seeing the course fall more than $432,000 short of the break-even point.

An attempt by the City Council earlier this year to turn the operation of RedGate over to the Montgomery County Revenue Authority failed when the Revenue Authority turned down the offer.

The council was found by the Maryland Attorney General's Office to have violated the Open Meetings Act during negotiations.