Attendees: Will Kriewald, Leigh Michl, Andrew Snow, Brian Williams (scribe), Bryan Hall, Richard Gervase, Matt Lillard, Brad Noble, Andrew Carey
Absent: Jeff Wittingham, Meg Schultz, Geordie Hall
Agenda
1:00 pm – Call to order – Will Kriewald
1:01 pm – Review March minutes – Will Kriewald/Brian Williams
1:05 pm – Review April and FYTD Financials – Andrew Snow
1:30 pm – Review cash flow forecast – Andrew Snow
1:45 pm – Discussion on proposed fund balances
1:45 pm – Discussion on proposed Capital Budget
1:55pm – Reminder on 2026 Committee Slate
2:00 pm – Adjournment
Approval of Minutes from Prior meeting
Andrew made a motion to approve, Bryan seconded. Motion approved.
April
Revenue
It was not a great April with only 5 days of operation. The value of the breakages helped us to beat the budget for day tickets.
The Co-op surpassed $5M in revenue for the first time in history once the breakage was recognized (it was not the beer sales at annual shareholder meeting…).
Expense
Expense savings in April versus budget due to short operating schedule.
Bonus payout about double from last year due to the great season! Total impact of $122K so far with more in May (and June) to get to a total close to $200K. About double the value of last year’s bonus.
Credit card fees – Got a note from the card company that MRG has now been put on the lowest rates possible. We do not have an answer for why March was so high, unfortunately.
Will – consider asking what savings we might get by switching pay systems. Andrew S – agreed. Good to ask. See additional question at the end of the discussion from Geordie as well.
Will – were we ahead of budget before paying bonus? Andrew S – no, bonus cost is completely in a separate line item (other expense).
Bryan – does the budget not include a bonus? Andrew S – no, they are not budgeted. They are funded out of NOI overages against budget.
Bryan – Should we rethink adding something to the budget for the bonus? This would show as a regular line item versus not including it in the budget. Andrew S – weather is a challenge to estimate what this budget amount might be. We might need to increase the income to feel comfortable meeting this. Matt – We do not consider the bonus situation as a regular occurrence and has been a consistent message to employees. We would need to be overly optimistic on revenue to have the confidence to include a bonus in the regular budget. Andrew C – we wouldn’t take a loss to pay bonuses.
Net Ordinary Income
Excluding bonuses, we came close to budget NOI in April. Nicely on track for full year net profit of $200K – $250K post summer operations.
Cash Flow April
Only $70K below last year this time, even with payments for Sunnyside project.
Total Cash Review
Operating cash increased and will be used for summer expenses. Looking to increase the operating fund to $450K and non-Operating to $750K.
Andrew C – Does the shareholder care about the split between operating and non-operating? Will – preparing for higher costs and increasing from $400K to $450K is good governance. Andrew S – more for storytelling with Shareholders.
Andrew C – Do governance documents say we wait until the approved budget for next year is available. Not sure but all agreed that timing should be after the budget approval.
Will – Will not action today. Plan to do this via a motion in the June meeting.
Cash Flow 2024-25 Projection
Replenishing cash following a good year. Money in non-operating requires trustee approval for use per investment guidelines.
Capital plan completed. Looking at $100K more than is shown currently on the cash flow plan for a total of $300K.
Andrew C – did we get second installment from SMF? Andrew S – no confirmation yet but in cash flow for May or August. Still expecting a total of $230K more.
Discussion
Capital Budget
Strong season and strong share sales this year. Good time to look at a higher than usual ($200K) capital budget. Pub preliminary work approved back in 2023. $6K for new flat top grill to increase summer pub capacity as there were some long wait times last summer.
Tower foundations – not a safety issues but there are some cosmetic cracks that the inspector noted with the Birdland chair towers. Single chair motor rebuild due per the normal schedule (10 years). Repainting the Sunnyside Double towers for the first time in 27 years. A big new item is a machine lift for maintenance for safety and efficiency. It is a good recruiting tool for new mechanics as well. All agreed this would be a valuable addition to the maintenance shop.
Andrew C – sprucing up of buildings included in capital? Matt – doing on expense instead as it is a relatively small cost.
Brad – There were two post installation issues on Sunnyside double – circuitry and sway in a lift tower – are these concerns and are they budgeted? Matt – Concerns, yes, but covered (and will be worked) under the existing contract so not in the plan for capital.
Will – looking for approval for the capital plan? Matt – yes. Prefer to have this capital plan discussion in March as some items are typically moved forward by anticipating approval versus having formal approval.
Will – any concern spending the additional $100K? Andrew C – are all costs in cash flow? Andrew – $85K-$90K are not in the current cash flow.
Brian – Fixed grips were noted at the last Finance committee meeting as a potential capital item? Matt – This is a 2-5 year item due to tariff and long-term delivery issues (9 months). This item will be added to a future plan.
Brian – what does the 2-5 year plan look like? Matt – $200K +/- for the 2-5 yr out plan. No large expenses on the horizon, excluding Pub project, but also looking to advance the culture of looking out further for capital items.
No Pub project discussions today. This will be required in June and this fall. Matt’s concern is that SMF fundraising will not provide enough to get the project started in 2026. More to come on this such as potential financing.
Will – Motion to approve capital plan as presented. Second by Andrew Cary. Motion approved.
Question from Geordie from Chat: As I may not be present, I do have one question about the POS system. Is this moving us forward solving some of the problems or is it simply replacing stuff that needs to be replaced?
Andrew S – The IT expenses this summer are mainly replacing hardware, including the primary server that runs the entire point of sale system.
In terms of the future, we are actively looking at alternatives for our online store, but there are a number of obstacles including needing to accept Mad Money online, selling retail items in addition to passes & tickets, etc. For reference, we currently pay around $6k in annual licensing fees for our existing eCommerce. To switch to the newer, cloud-based solution offered by accesso Siriusware (current POS provider), implementation would cost $10-15k (plus a lot of internal labor) and the annual licensing would be replaced by a percentage of our total online revenue. That would be 2-3%, or roughly $57-86k based on our online sales of almost $2.9 million over the past 12 months. This newer system also does not have the ability to sell retail items with different size & color combinations. We could continue selling retail items, but each size/color combination would have to be setup as a unique item. The bumper sticker t-shirt, for example, would need to be 24 separate items. This is far from ideal, so we’re investigating other options including a wholesale change to a different POS provider, but that would be an even bigger and more expensive undertaking.
Slate of candidates for Finance board for the following year
Message in chat as to whether want to continue. Kudos given to both the Finance team and the management team for support and performance.
Will made a motion to close the meeting (7 minutes early!). Andrew Carey second. Motion approved.
