Finance Committee Meeting Minutes: October 16, 2024

Mad River Glen Finance Committee

Meeting Minutes

10/16/2024

Attendees: Will Kriewald, Matt Lillard, Geordie Hall, Leigh Michl, Andrew Carey, Andrew Snow, Brian Williams (scribe), Bryan Hall

Absent:  Brad Noble, Richard Gervase, Jeff Wittingham, Meg Schultz

Agenda

1:00 pm – Call to order – Will Kriewald

1:01 am – Review September minutes – Will Kriewald/Brian Williams

1:03 pm – Review September and YTD financials – Andrew Snow

1:25 pm – Review cash flow forecast – Andrew Snow

1:40 pm – Review Season Pass Sales

1:50 pm – Recap of Backup Process – Geordie Hall

2:00 pm – Adjournment

Approval of Minutes from Prior meeting

No comments. Geordie motion to approve, Andrew C second. Approved.

Sept

NOI

38K$ below budget for Sept. 13K$ in interest helped offset for total net income.

Revenue

Foliage off to good start in Sept. One fewer operating day than last year. October attendance is much better than last year/budget and will show in Oct NOI. “Looked like a powder day in the parking lot on Green and Gold.” Retail above budget. Lots of Mad money purchases. Overall 24K$ above budget.

Expense

Higher labor and food expenses. Bigger than usual mow crew. Facilities above budget by 17K$. Mow crew went viral on social media with a posting that they got a seasons pass (they also were paid). Office/Admin 17K$ above budget (bonus/vacation accruals). Total 62K$ above budget.

Will – How do you feel about the budget numbers for 24-25 basebox budget? Andrew S – the next budget includes increased wages from the April budget exercise so should reflect increased wages.

Sept YTD P&L

Revenue

4.8 M$. Record for the co-op. 528K$ above budget.

Expense

Total bonus $104K$ with total (benefits cost included) impact of 120 K$. Kept the bonus at a similar level to last year.

NOI

107 K$ above budget. Net income including interest is 154K$. Interest and bonus were a wash as noted in the expense versus last year.  Total NOI after adjustments at 42K$ (SMF, depreciation).

Will – does NOI include interest? Andrew S. – Not in 23-24, report reformatted from 22-23. Just ski area operations now. Interest income broken out and added for total NOI.

Will – Good to put the operational numbers (visits) together with the finances. Mix of folks showing up versus revenue against individual days as an example. What is the standard deviation for operating decisions.? Andrew S – The mix of tickets (season/day). Incremental passholder visits are higher than in prior years as the cost to ski for marginal days is lower for the significant increase in season pass holders.

Cash Flow Through Sept YTD

We will take out POP account value from the cash flow going forward. We needed to keep funds segregated in the past. The 5K$ is considered Co-op money now with current SMF-Co-op alignment.

Leigh – Request to simplify breakdown of available cash:

1. Total coop cash
2. Subtotal of brokerage accounts (Multiple bank accounts)
3. Operational Cash (new) – Show what is in the bank to cover all operating expenses. Anrew S agreed to show this line separately going forward.

Brian W – Do we have an operational minimum for moving cash between accounts. Long discussion, short answer, yes.

Cash Flow 2024-25 Projection

Brian W – Why is Jan 25 largest NOI loss? Andrew S – due to lower visitation/lower day ticket sales in early season with full operations.

Delays in bills for double chair helping cash position temporarily.

Geordie – How tight is the double chair schedule? Matt – Tight, real tight. Decision to pull the plug on the project for this season likely Monday with concrete pour. If we delay it until next year, it will impact cash in a positive way. The current cash flow shows best case implementation and funds from SMF. Not a lot of fundraising yet, however, for the double chair mid-station from the SMF – Co-op partnership. Competing impacts on cash that will net out with delay but may reduce coop cash is fundraising delivers later than expected. We may have a reserve account impact to cover fundraising timing if the project is finished this year.

Will – Joint fundraising committee input needed. Let’s move to the trustees meeting.

Ticket Sales

Junior and twixter pass behind but usually come in later in the season per last YTD. College pass deadline is later in the end of November.

Ticket sales are already at 98% of the budget for FY.

Ski school seaonal program count significantly down, but freeski and race are up

Brian W – Number of passes for older skiers has increased. Are they coming back from Sugarbush? Andrew/Matt – may be some of that given the knowledge that there are now consistent groomers at MRG.

Bryan H – Are senior passes capped separately from full passes? Or does selling a senior pass cannibalize the higher priced full adult pass? Andrew S – are capped in their own senior pass inventory, not in adult cap bucket. We have hit limit on adult passes this year.

Brian W – Are we at capacity for pass products?  Andrew/Will – essentially yes and sold out before deadline except for mid-week.

Ski school down YTD but expect some late sign-ups. Not sure what is driving the drop.

Will – Did we expand the ski option for cricket club? Andrew S – yes, added a ski option for 3-year-olds last year. We had a handful of lessons. Just daily lessons.

Discussion

IT backup concern from Geordie from the last meeting for exposure to an IT catastrophe (server loss) with an on-site building fire.  Andrew S – Mike Ketchel input (IT consultant) is that everything is backed-up nightly to off-site servers in the cloud. Maximum loss is 1 day of data. Credit cards are processed in real-time and captured by the credit card company. We would lose the information on the specific point of sale transaction. A tedious process to rebuild a 1-day loss. We have asked for a quote for a more frequent backup system.

Brian W – Can we limit the additional cost of more frequent backup to look at more risky time periods for a quote (season pass sales periods)?

Leigh – More frequent backups have their own risk as it is a trigger for hackers. Do we have business interruption insurance?  Question for Matt (not in meeting) for follow-up.

Andrew S – Flood business interruption used for 2022 flood incident. The business interruption reimbursement covered the insurance deductible.

Geodie moved to close the meeting.  Andrew C seconded. Meeting adjourned.