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Minutes of a Meeting of the
<br />North Olmsted Parks and Recreation Commission
<br />March 5, 2007
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<br />then note salaries, benefits, materials and supplies, contractual services, capital outlay, expenditures
<br />before transfers. Across the top find administration, enrichment, building maintenance, pool, ice rink,
<br />tennis, gymnastics, individual and team sports, concessions and pro shop (which last two are no longer
<br />viable).
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<br />Ms. Copfer said that, when the Finance Department went into a new accounting system, it wanted to
<br />have consistency in each of the categories. All this information gets rolled up into the financials,
<br />footnotes and detailed financial statements for each. Some people had questions on budgeting and the
<br />rules of a fund. For example, last year, everyone said we’re making money on enrichments; we’re
<br />bringing in more, but we need to increase expenditures for it, so can Finance increase revenue. Ms.
<br />Copfer said that could be done if the revenues are balanced because it’s in a fund. We can’t overspend
<br />what we’re bringing in. So, we estimate what we think we’re going to make in programs, and we’re
<br />pretty clear on what we’re going to get in tax revenue, and then we create a budget based on those
<br />estimates. When those estimates aren’t coming in the way we planned, it’s just like a home, you have
<br />to cut expenses somewhere. The Rec Fund runs in the whole fund by itself. Even though you might
<br />be making money in ice rink, if you’re bringing in more money than you’re expending in the ice rink,
<br />but yet enrichment is down in revenue, then expenses must be cut so that the fund in total is balanced.
<br />You cannot go into a deficit.
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<br />This past year, what happened toward the end is that the Rec wasn’t making its estimated resources
<br />and, even though Finance was told the ice rink comes in pretty big in December, Finance planned and
<br />reduced the debt payment for the Rec so that they wouldn’t go into a deficit. The Rec ended up fine,
<br />because the ice rink over Christmas brought in money that probably could have made the debt
<br />payment, but the Rec would have ended up with $10,000 as the ending fund balance rather than
<br />$68,000. Council approves those transfers, so it was approved through Council.
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<br />Mr. DiSalvo said this is a complicated matter, and he tried to explain that before to the Commission.
<br />Carrie (Copfer) did an excellent job, even though it’s broken down to cost centers. As a whole, if the
<br />Rec is not on par, it doesn’t really matter if one is having a great year and the other is having a poor
<br />one, it has to balance out. Ms. Copfer said that the building maintenance spent $1.1 million. We can’t
<br />break out utilities by function here, so it makes it difficult. Those costs have to get allocated across all
<br />the cost centers. Obviously, the ice rink and the pool are probably the larger users of it, so there’s no
<br />revenue stream offsetting that other than tax revenues. So it must be looked at as a business, and
<br />maybe there might be a few loss leaders that bring people in the Rec Center, and you may want to
<br />charge a premium for something that is in high demand.
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<br />Mr. Scarl had a question on the building maintenance – what was the $623,000 for contractual
<br />services – was that an outside contractor? Ms. Copfer said that would be utilities and anything bought
<br />from an outside contractor, which includes utilities. The people that work at the pool and that keep
<br />the ice rink going would be included in that as well. Our maintenance staff usually buys things out of
<br />materials and supplies.
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<br />Ms. Copfer said that this report is a summary of detailed information for 2006 operations.
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