McWilliams says Old Threshers had a profitable 2015

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

It was a good 2015 for the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion and accompanying programs.

That?s what Terry McWilliams, Old Threshers CEO, told the Henry County supervisors Thursday when making his budget request for fiscal year 2017. McWilliams asked the supervisors for $20,000, the same amount he requested last year.

?We went through a lot of changes last year, but overall, 2015 was a good year,? McWilliams reported. ?As of this date, we are $123,000 better than last year at this time.?

The growth in revenue is despite a slight drop in attendance at the five-day reunion. The event, once again, was hosted in hot, humid weather, leading to a drop of 1,300 in attendance. Still, 31,254 people attended Old Threshers. He said that an increase in five-day passes to 11,622 helped offset the attendance revenue drop.

It was the events after Old Threshers that helped blacken the budget. Some 6,400 people passed through the Haunted House. Another 10,797 people rode the Haunted Rails. ?Halloween is really working great for us; the Halloween events went very well.?

So did the Festival of Lights. Following shortly on the heels of Halloween activities, the holiday-light extravaganza attracted 3,546 vehicles passing through. McWilliams said the first car to make its way through the light displays was from Florida and vehicles representing 35 states took in the holiday lights.

Old Threshers also just signed a new three-year contract with the firm that provides the displays for the Festival of Lights.

Once again, volunteers played an important part in the reunion, McWilliams noted, relating that the volunteers devoted a combined 40,377 hours. ?Obviously, we wouldn?t exist without the volunteers,? McWilliams emphasized. The 2016 reunion will be held Sept. 1-5.

He said a three-phase improvement project is being planned at Old Threshers to begin after the 2016 reunion. Plans include a new storage building, building a museum inside Museum A, major work on the trolley track and remodeling restrooms.

McWilliams? budget presentation was preceded by the secondary roads budget request from Henry County Engineer Jake Hotchkiss.

Hotchkiss is proposing a $6,454,928 fiscal 2017 budget, or an increase of 16.7 percent over fiscal 2016?s $5,530,140 budget. Hotchkiss also noted that the 10-cent gasoline tax increase came after his 2016 budget was finished and those funds would raise the fiscal 2016 budget to about $6 million.

One of the spikes in the fiscal 2017 budget is $600,000 for quarry crushing of 150,000 tons of rock. The crushing is done every three years, he said.

Hotchkiss also noted that his department is in the midst of an aggressive construction schedule, which should taper off in fiscal year 2018 where he estimates his budget request will be slightly over $5 million.

?We have a large construction program upcoming and we actually have had two big years of construction,? he explained. ?Our fiscal budget year ends at a bad time (June 30) because it is right in the middle of construction season.?

Line items in his budget include $625,000 for new equipment; $2,384,178 for roads (blading, erosion control, placing rock and ditch cleaning); $1.2M for local construction projects; $879,866 for equipment operation; $200,580 for snow and ice control; and $135,000 for bridges and culvert maintenance.

Hotchkiss said that the county typically resurfaces gravel roads at a rate of 400 ton per mile, accounting for 25 percent of the gravel road system to be resurfaced each year.

The top items in new equipment are a motor grader at $230,000 and an end loader for $175,000.

He is predicting a fiscal 2016 year-ending balance of $2.3M with $800,000 of the total allocated to ongoing projects.

Hotchkiss noted that the increase in gasoline tax revenue is being used strictly for roads. Local option sales tax money the department receives is used for construction projects only, but the board of supervisors must approve those projects.

The engineer would like to use $70,000 from the capital improvement fund to replace an existing pole barn, used as a county shed, located at the intersection of 220th Street and Oasis Avenue, with a new 30x50 foot maintenance structure. He also wants the maintenance shed to have a concrete foundation, concrete floor and heat and water. Construction is planned for the summer or fall of 2016 and funding will come from the community betterment fund.

?The primary focus of next year?s budget is to improve roads. Everything won?t be fixed at once and it will take a while to see the fruits of our labors,? Hotchkiss said. ?I am really happy with our road department, they are working very hard.?

As of Dec. 31, 2015, about 35 percent of the fiscal 2016 budget had been spent, he stated.

The only other agenda item was amending the county?s mileage reimbursement, effective Jan. 1, 2016. County reimbursement was at 55 cents per mile, but will drop to 54 percent. That?s because the Internal Revenue Service?s mileage deduction has dropped from 57 to 54 cents per mile. Iowa Code states that county reimbursement cannot exceed the IRS deduction.

Supervisors meet again on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse.