By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer

HOWARD – The Village Green Golf Course recorded one of its best years financially in 2020, Director of Administrative Services Chris Haltom reported Monday, Feb. 8, to the Howard village board.

“It was the second highest year for revenue, total revenues,” he said. “The highest year was in 2007, and it was only $4,000 higher than what last year was for the golf course.”

Haltom, who provided the board with unaudited year-end financial reports for 2020, said the COVID-19 pandemic “seemed to reignite some interest in golf.”

“Hopefully that continues in the future for our golf course,” he said.

Haltom’s report to the board showed the course’s restaurant operations were close to a break-even point for 2020 with $169,618 in revenues and $167,968 in expenses, compared to golf operations with $497,762 in revenues and $301,519 in expenses.

When factoring in $6,317 in administrative expenses and $49,056 in depreciation, the course had an operating income of $142,520 for 2020.

The course also reported $65,367 in non-operating revenues, including $63,001 in grants, for a net income last year of $207,887.

In 2019, the course reported a net income of $11,467.

General fund

Haltom said the village’s general fund ended the year with a surplus of $191,279, mostly due to COVID-19 grants of $95,453 and a COVID-19 withholding tax savings of approximately $55,000.

He said the general fund last year realized spending above the budgeted amount in elections by $36,073, which was reimbursed by the COVID-19 grant money.

“With all the absentee ballots that we processed and people we had to have come in early to help with in-person absentee voting, and also just the process – the volume of the envelopes that we mailed out… that is what caused the elections to go over budget for the year,” he said. “And we also had to have a lot of people process (the ballots) on Election Day, so that was extraordinary from all the previous years.”

Haltom said spending on sanitation and recycling was over budget by $33,860 and $26,303, respectively.

He said overall general fund spending was still under budget by $85,210 with other departments spending less than budgeted in 2020.

Howard Commons

Haltom said he believes there would have been fewer vacancies in the Howard Commons apartment complex, had it not been for the pandemic, but the village still made money.

“This report has depreciation in it, so on the very bottom of the report shows kind of a cash flow number, how much excess cash we generated from the apartment complex – it’s about $400,000,” he said.

Three utilities

Haltom said the village’s water utility ended the year with an operating loss of $475,873, primarily due to rates needing an increase and costs for water tower painting of $597,000.

He said a water rate increase will go into effect when bills are distributed at the end of February.

Haltom said the sewer utility ended the year with an operating income of $233,685, with the cost of sewage treatment higher in 2020 due to the largest industrial customer having issues with pretreatment and being charged fees from the utility to offset that increased cost.

He said the storm water utility ended the year with an operating income of $37,893.