During the Eastern Rio Blanco Metropolitan Recreation and Park District’s board meeting on Nov. 15, Director Vicky Edwards reviewed monthly financial reports with the board, noting, “I think the staff has done a phenomenal job on watching expenses every way down the line, every single line item.” Despite these efforts she said the operations budget is about $11K over budget, adding that there’s not much room in next year’s budget to make cuts given efforts to trim down expenses via staff diligence and cost-recovery methods.
ERBM Executive Director Sean VonRoenn chimed in during financial discussions to suggest financial committee meetings in February-March. He said the meetings would cover shifting investment holdings and potentially hiring a new brokerage firm.
BUDGET
VonRoenn covered a budget overview with the board last week, discussing changes/revisions since the preliminary budget hearing on Oct. 11, 2022. Expenditure increases are noted under a few categories, most notably personnel, which will increase by $40K after resolution 2022-12 when the board voted to increase staff wages. Under operations, utilities are projected to increase by $20K due to an increase in natural gas costs. Other expenditure increases from 2022 include:
- +$5K for contracted IT services after losing internal staff
- +$1500 for IT contingency equipment
- +$500 for customer incentives (pens and membership wallets)
- +$15K for supplies (mostly ADA compliant picnic tables)
- +$7K for vending/pro shop
- +$5K for RBC treasurers fee
- +$6K for employee pension plan
The district will spend $7K less for “MRC Door Security System” than initially budgeted based on an option recommended by the Parks and Facilities Manager
The district is also cutting overall expenditures by 10%
- -$76K for personnel (eliminating five recreation/admin positions)
- -$24K for contracted services
- -$8.5K for equipment
- -$12K for general operations
Overall revenue projections are up 13% at $3.5 million for 2023 versus $2.9 million in 2022. Revenues are increasing from multiple areas including taxes ($25K) fees ($30K) and investment/interest ($25K) and other areas.
The overall budget deficit for 2023 is $1.2 million, a reduction from the 2022 budget deficit of $2.2 million.
RIVER PROJECT
VonRoenn said Thompson Myrtle, the project lead for the Circle Park Phase II river improvements has “moved on from SWCA” and passed the project to a civil engineer named Mike Pierce. “Tom was the river expert on the project. So I just had to bring that to the board’s attention that we want to keep tabs on that as the draft iterations come forward, which I’m expecting at any point here soon,” said VonRoenn. He also noted that the Town of Meeker, the project’s partner entity, recently received $220K toward the project.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Board President John Strate notified the board of a staff member’s formal letter of complaint regarding a conflict of interest at the October meeting. “We did discuss pay raises for employees and we have two board members that have relationships,” referencing the fact that Directors Vicky Edwards and Travis Mobley are both related to district employees and should have recused themselves from the discussion. Edwards said she appreciated the correction. Director Kim Kendall said she was disappointed in how the complaint was handled, noting that staff or audience members could have said something during the pay raise discussions. VonRoenn said he could have prompted the board better to keep the discussion among people without a conflict of interest.
The board agreed that the complaint is a “healthy reminder,” and a good example of how employees should come forward “when they feel something isn’t right” without fear of retribution.
The board finished the meeting with an executive session to “discuss personnel matters.”
By LUCAS TURNER | [email protected]om
