Finance Committee Meeting Minutes; May 16, 2018

Attendance: Bruce Button, Sharon Crawford, Richard Gervase, Geordie Hall, Meg Hourihan, Matt Kenny, Matt Lillard, Pete Ludlow, Matthew Milan, Eric Palola, Meg Schultz, Deb Steines, John Stetson, John Tobin, Brian Williams

The meeting was brought to order at 8:00 AM by Deb Steines, Finance Committee Chair.  This meeting was called to discuss the 2018/19 budget.

Sales Model discussion:

• Matt commented that this year’s focus was on both accuracy and being realistic,
• adjustments to the sales model to include .5 days, as weather has a huge impact on the model
• The lead ticket rate will remain the same as last year at $89, this adjusts based on forecasted e-commerce tickets and weather in the sales model.
• Ticket pricing will be advertised on Facebook, MR website and other notifications. This past year noticed a huge shift in purchases online as the web site took over, anticipating it to be a big player in 2018/19 lift ticket sales.
• Pass increase 3% across the board, have not increased in 3 years. Our volume is consistent year after year and does not seem to fluctuate based on a bad weather year.
• We are the only ski area that includes sales tax in the advertised lift ticket price. We agreed with Matt that we should not be the only area that does this and it should be changed so a comparison to another ski area’s pricing is ‘apples to apples’.  Discussion about communication on the change, this will ultimate fall to Matt to determine, but we talked about leaving prices flat to prior year and just add tax, or let the pass prices appear to drop in publications and then add taxes.

Budget Summary:

• The co-op discount line on the P/L has been eliminated and the discounts moved to the pass and day ticket lines as that is the only discount that was included, not retail, ski school, etc.
• Day tickets budget is $155k over current YE projections, that is one good holiday week, and doable.
• Budget is for a 100 day season hitting one holiday period. Matt feels this is a good budget for an average to under average year.
• Basebox is being budgeted for a 32% cost of food, working on comparing food vendor pricing to help with this. Also reviewing beers that are sold for price point since Lawson’s is the big seller.
• Facilities increase – full budget for lift ops and ski patrol, had been under budgeted in prior years. Budgeted for a part time year round maintenance/snow maker <30 hour week person which will add to productivity and actually result in savings due to a reduction in overtime for other staff personnel.  New variable frequently drive pump will result in efficiencies.
• Insurance/Property taxes reflect fluctuations with general insurance increase and property taxes and workers comp decreasing.
• Marketing lower, new website will require less to operate and startup costs were in last years actuals. Also work done last year on various marketing pieces will not have to be repeated.

Matt will be getting us his non-Paradise Campaign capital budget as well as cash flow projections for the next meeting on Wednesday, June 6th.  We will also review any changes he makes to the documents reviewed today.

We all complimented Matt and his staff on an excellent, well presented budget.

The meeting adjourned at 9:00 AM.

The Finance Committee will meet Wednesday June 6th at 8 AM,

Respectfully submitted, Deb Steines, Treasurer and Chair of Finance Committee