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ORDA still aches from last winter

Best summer season ever wasn’t enough to overcome it

State Olympic Regional Development Authority President Ted Blazer speaks during Tuesday’s ORDA Board of Directors meeting at the Conference Center at Lake Placid. (Enterprise photo — Antonio Olivero)

LAKE PLACID — Last year’s fiancial woes due to warm weather have carried into this year, but state Olympic Regional Development Authority officials hope early snowfall will result in a bounce-back season.

“As we’ve beaten to death, the winter weather of 2015-16 hurt the organization pretty badly financially, which unfortunately carried into the new fiscal year,” ORDA Director of Finance Padraig Power said at Tuesday’s ORDA Board of Directors meeting Tuesday at the Conference Center at Lake Placid. “There is just no way to avoid that. Although revenues were drastically down, management has been very successful in managing expenses and allowing the organization to still succeed working up to winter 2016-17.”

Power provided a financial report for the seven-month period between the start of ORDA’s fiscal year, April 1, and the end of October. Tuesday’s meeting was postponed from Oct. 25.

Year-to-date operating revenue for that time period is up $40,000, or 1 percent over 2015-16. Power said a significant reason for this increase was Olympic Center revenue, up $183,000, or 13 percent. Power added that the Conference Center increased its revenue by $180,000, a spike of 109 percent, and he said revenue from the ORDA Store on Main Street in Lake Placid was up $33,000, or 15 percent.

A lack of revenue due to a paltry ski month in April hurt ORDA, though. Power said the authority’s year-to-date revenue is $328,000 under what was originally budgeted, due to the loss of skiing in April.

“The fiscal year begins April 1, and we budgeted out skiing into April,” he said.

In its 2015-16 annual report published in June, ORDA said the summer of 2015 was the greatest to date for Whiteface revenue, with the reconstructed highway up the mountain logging its most visitors since 1999 and generating record revenue. Whiteface’s overall summer revenue was up almost 10 percent, to $673,380, in 2015-16. Revenue this summer for the Veterans Memorial Highway was even better, up $186,000 or 28 percent.

In June, Power said, ORDA’s operating revenues dropped 25 percent from 2014-15, to $8.8 million. As a result, the authority worked to cut expenses across its family of ski facilities throughout the state.

“If you factor in capital labor, (personal service) expense is down a total of $788,000, 7 percent against the prior year,” Power said. “(This is) directly attributal to management focused on staffing levels and overtime managment at the venue department level.”

The authority’s direct wage expense is down $473,000, or 6 percent compared to 2015-16. But Power added that ORDA is still facing “payroll added” cost increases of about 8 percent in health insurance.

ORDA’s total non-personal service expenses year-to-date are $561,000, or 12 percent lower than last year at this time. Power said much of the decrease is due to the authority’s tight operating budget throughout the summer. Gore Mountain in North Creek was down $232,000, the Olympic Jumping Complex was down $107,000, Mount Van Hoevenberg was down $88,000, and Belleayre in the Catskills was down $173,000.

Through September, operating loss for ORDA before depreciation was $9 million compared to an operating loss of $10.4 million through October 2015. It’s an improvement in ORDA’s bottom line by more than 1.38 million, or 13 percent, compared to last year.

The authority’s personal service expenses before capitalized labor are $400,000 over budget. Power said the increase is directly due to payroll added cost increases such as workers compensation and health insurance, which were over budget by $298,000 and $174,000 respectively.

Power said increases in payroll added costs remain a concern for the authority’s expense management. He said for this fiscal year, ORDA faced a 10 percent increase resulting in more than $1 million in expense increases from health insurance, workers compensation and retirement. Power added that projections for increases for 2017-18 are roughly 7 percent, or $850,000.

ORDA Director of Marketing Liz Mezzetti said ORDA wants to grow by an average of 3 percent in the next three years, despite last winter’s struggles.

“The minimal growth that you are seeing, what we are saying is that it is not enough,” Mezzetti said at the meeting. “We want to see substantial change. We would like to see Whiteface, Belleayre and Gore grow by about 10 percent over the next three years.”

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