Menard center draws criticism

WASILLA — A councilwoman is renewing a request to commission an independent management review of the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in the wake of the resignation of the city’s Recreation and Cultural Services manager last week.

John C. Combs resigned the afternoon of Oct. 9, hours after he was arrested for DUI following a city event at the center. Mayor Verne Rupright suspended him without pay, pending a city investigation into the allegations, which included witnesses observing Combs consuming alcohol during the weekly Tuesday Night Fights at the Menard. Combs later came to Rupright’s office and resigned, the mayor has said.

Combs’ arrest and resignation have pushed to the forefront some longstanding concerns Wasilla City Council has had about management at the sports center, said Deputy Mayor Colleen Sullivan-Leonard.

An independent management audit “is something I brought up previously, and I think now is the time to push it forward,” Sullivan-Leonard said. “It’s time to put a professional in there to best gauge how we can improve on our facility. It’s time.”

She outlines her proposal in an Oct. 10 memorandum to Rupright and the rest of the city council.

“When the management of a city facility fails, then I believe the city has failed our community and steps need to be taken to rectify this and I believe failure is not an option,” she says in the memo. “The council and I have repeatedly asked the city to give us a clear plan on the goals and objectives for the operational management of the sports complex. That has repeatedly come forward in a muddled format and has not been useful for its intended purpose. What has come through clearly is that we continue to lose revenue while operational and expenditure costs continue to increase.”

That the sports complex is being mismanaged and revenues are dropping is an unfair characterization, Rupright said. In fact, revenues at the Menard increased 12 percent in 2013 over 2012, from $544,634 to $651,634. That jump in revenue was more than twice the 5.2 percent increase in operational expenses (excluding depreciation) over that same period, from $1,105,622 to $1,163,562.

“I’ve been working hard right from the beginning to try to turn that around,” he said of the difference between revenue and expenses at the complex. “These centers are not big money makers for municipalities. We’re doing the best we can to catch that rascal. (The 2013 revenue increase) is quite a bit and we’ve cut the budget back quite a bit.”

Since the center’s first full year of operation in 2005, revenues in 2013 were up about $75,000, or 13 percent, while expenditures increased by a little more than $374,000, or 47.4 percent.

Rupright said he believes Sullivan-Leonard’s call for an outside management audit is politically motivated.

“She’s running for office, that’s all I have to say,” he said when asked to respond to the memo. “She’s running for mayor next year.”

For her part, Sullivan-Leonard confirmed her plans to run for mayor in 2014, but she said her position on the Menard sports center reflects concerns the council as a whole has voiced for months. During the latest budget cycle, the council directed Combs to craft a reasonable business plan to manage the facility, she said. What he came back with was unacceptable, she said.

“It’s our responsibility to see that the complex is managed well,” she said, adding that Rupright’s claim about her candidacy is off base. “That kind of deflects him taking responsibility for the problems at the sports complex, doesn’t it?”

Ultimately, the buck stops in the mayor’s office, she said.

“It’s at the top. The mayor is in charge of managing our facilities and the council continues to point out the challenges,” Sullivan-Leonard said. “It’s going through (the council) and nothing’s being done. If you’re not getting the direction from the top, you have to go outside.”

No takers

Since its first full year of operation in 2005, the sports center has lost money every year, according to figures from the Wasilla Finance Department. That deficit has been as small as $164,878 in 2006 and as large as $519,998 in 2012. Since 2011, the city has subsidized the center by about $500,000 or more a year. In 2013, the unaudited final budget shows a $511,928 difference between revenue and expenses. The 2014 adopted budget — Wasilla budgets two years at a time — shows an estimated shortfall of $562,524.

Just because there’s a shortfall doesn’t mean the center misses its expected revenue goals, said Troy Tankersly, the city’s finance director.

“When we talk about these revenues not meeting expenditures, when we do a budget, we try to project what those revenues are going to be,” he said. “And more often than not, we’re hitting those or doing better.”

He also said the complex was never viewed as a money making venture.

“I don’t know too many sports centers that actually make money,” he said. “Look at the Sullivan Arena (in Anchorage). The city council there contracted it out years ago because of the expense.”

In fact, Tankersly and Rupright said that during the last two-year budget process in 2012, the city put out a request for information (RFI) to gauge interest in having a private firm contract with the city to manage the Menard.

“We were looking at alternatives, and one of those was is there someone who would like to manage this,” Tankersly said.

Turns out, there isn’t much interest from the private sector in managing the Menard, Rupright said.

“It’s bought and paid for — in fact, we paid it off early,” he said. “But it costs to run, just like a library costs to run or a police force or parks and rec. I put it out for RFI and we didn’t get one taker.”

Moving forward

The Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center isn’t being mismanaged, Rupright said, adding that if the council wants to pass an ordinance to spend city money to do an audit, that’s the council’s prerogative.

“It’s certainly within their purview to question what’s going on and how much it’s costing us,” he said. “They asked that through the budget process, but we’re doing what we can and the numbers don’t lie.”

Moving forward, Rupright said he isn’t looking to replace Combs’ position right away, if he decides to go that route at all. He also expressed confidence in the building’s marketing manager, Joan Klapperich.

“I think I’m reorganizing that department,” he said. “I have absolutely nobody in mind to bring in as a director, and Joan’s doing a good job as a building manager."

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.

Revenues and expenses at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center since its first full year of operation in 2005.