New Finance Director Ty Reed, and his work on the midyear budget, was the focus of the City Advertising and Promotion Commission on Sept. 25. Reed said that the report he created was only up to July.
Executive Director Mike Maloney admitted that due to current circumstances, Reed had been “thrown in the deep end” and was doing his best to make sense of information available.
Maloney and Reed had put together not just the report, but also a resolution to change the accounting from accrual based to a cash accounting system like the one employed by city government. In this new way of entering the money, it is entered the month it is received regardless of when it was due, although Reed explained that he had created tags in the accounting system to show the month funds were due so that the payments and collections can be easily followed.
Maloney informed commissioners that Reed’s work revealed that there were areas in the original budget where money had been assigned that wasn’t necessarily needed in that line item, and places where they did not assign enough funds for items or projects. Commissioner David Avanzino requested that they go through the report line by line so they could all see what was going on and amend the budget together.
One revelation was that the previous finance director had given the erroneous impression that the Auditorium was paid for, but Maloney found out from City Finance Direct Michael Akins that the CAPC owes the city $44,000 a year rental fee that hasn’t been paid. The CAPC currently owes the city $170,000 that needs to be paid over the next four years.
Maloney also pointed out that the budget shows they had significantly overbudgeted in certain areas with money that could be moved around to other needs. Reed added that by looking at these different areas of over-and-under budgeting and moving allocated funds, he believed they could keep the budget to, or close to, its original amount and would not be adding new expenses.
Chair Steve Holifield reminded commissioners that taxes will be collected in October so there was a need to be cautious since they don’t know how much they have made. Maloney said he knew they hadn’t done well in the first quarter but thought that was because they were with Paradise Media and when they switched to Madden there were, in his opinion, noticeable improvements.
When going over the numbers concerning the use of the Auditorium, it showed that concessions didn’t do well, although Maloney believed that upcoming shows would improve the yearly numbers. Commissioner Robert Schmid was concerned about the draw of shows for the year at the Aud, and brought up the idea of hiring an Event Planner who would oversee booking shows and events for the Aud. Holifield said that would have to be its own workshop, but he was amenable to having one soon.
Commissioners discussed making permanent lines for the Parks Department and Historical Museum to make the process easier for everyone involved. Commissioner Heather Wilson-Vinson suggested making a line item for attracting online influencers. Maloney also recommended that photo and video productions be done locally and not have Madden in charge, since Eureka Springs has talented locals capable of producing excellent materials.
He also said that the White Phoenix Films video taken of the highlights of the city had been posted on YouTube and that Madden is going through the footage to create advertisements. They are also looking into having White Phoenix do some coverage of Zombie Crawl and update the Christmas commercial.
Commissioners discussed the entire budget for the Folk Fest this year being $35,000, and the need to consider that when planning the budget for next year. The current event budget for the holiday season includes $2600 for a giant ribbon that will be wrapped around the Aud. They are helping the city put together a New Year’s Eve celebration that will have a giant water drop fall into a giant bucket at midnight and having a laser light show in Basin Park.
Yes, but what if…
When discussing cost of Aud operations, Holifield asked who would take over the $366,000 cost of running the Aud if the CAPC no longer existed due to the A&P tax going away. Maloney replied that most likely the Aud would close, perhaps permanently. He said that one of the Aud’s biggest expenses was security, which he was grateful for the night of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils when someone pulled the alarm in the building and caused a commotion which has still not been accounted for, although no one was hurt.
The commission also discussed that the original budget for the Auditorium in 2024 (including operations costs such as renovations, maintenance, concessions, etc., and Aud show promotion) was at $417,500, while the actual YTD spent was only $190,000. Maloney said there had been “great optimism” when the budget was created in 2023 with two promoters and the possibility of an Events Coordinator being hired.
Commissioners discussed whether that amount budgeted for the Aud would be too large for 2025. Maloney said that the CAPC is already booking shows for 2025 and that the use of the budget hinges on both the number of acts in the year and that a high enough caliber of acts is brought to the venue.