Fairboard keeps busy

PLAINS – The Sanders County Fairboard had a full slate of business to attend to last week as the group met for their February proceedings at the Fairgrounds Pavilion in Plains.

Members of the fairboard came together on the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 18 for the meeting, which emphasized the fair’s budget, family ticketing packages and advertising strategies.

One of the first orders of business the board attended to focused on the final day of the fair.

With plans to host a monster truck rally, in addition to the annual demolition derby competition, on Sunday, Fair Manger Mike Hashisaki proposed offering families looking to see both events a motorsports family pack.

Hashisaki explained the family pack would enable a family of four to see both events for roughly $90-$100, wherein, if the family of four just went to the derby it would cost them around $80.

The fair manager added the 2014 fair had adopted a similar strategy through general admission ticketing during the rodeo.

There will be a limited number of the family pack tickets available to ensure the designated areas do not oversell tickets for the motor sports events.

As the meeting progressed the fair board undertook their second review of the proposed 2015/16 budget.

Addressing the potential cuts to Secure Rural School payments, Hashisaki noted the county budget, in addition to the fair budget, were likely to take a hit in regards to funding.  

The potential cuts to SRS funding are likely to be significant, resulting from the deadlock in Congress as legislators on Capitol Hill attempt to trim the nation’s budget.  

Throughout the state of Montana, Sanders County ranks as the second highest recipient of federal SRS funding, behind only Lincoln County.

In 2013 Sanders County received $2.23 million in SRS payments, while the state of Montana was the recipient of $21.3 million.

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act was passed into law by Congress in 2000, as a way to combat lowering timber prices and local county’s inability to tax federal land, notably land owned by the Forest Service.

According, to the United States Department of Agriculture, the program expired on Sept. 30, 2014 and was not reauthorized by the current session of Congress.

Due to the fact the 2000 act was not reauthorized, the 25 Percent Act of 1908 will govern distribution of federal funding to the counties in question.

Barring any further action on previously introduced legislation in the Senate, the state could see that total drop to $2.07 million for the fiscal year of 2015.

The 25 percent program grants rural counties 25 cents for every dollar the Forest Service earned from national forest land.

If SRS payments are not revived in the Senate, the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, handled by the Bureau of Land Management, will rise to partially compensate the loss of SRS funds for the 2016 fiscal year.

County commissioners Glen Magera and Carol Brooker were in attendance for the meeting and Brooker took some time to address the county’s efforts to plan for the potential shortage of SRS payments.

Brooker stressed it is not definite the SRS funding would not be renewed for the fiscal year but renewal is not in the federal budget yet.

If SRS payments are not renewed in Congress, the county would not receive around $1 million in SRS payments.

“We would be going into building our next budget on a million dollars less than what we got in the previous year. We would have to make up that million dollars somehow because that is federal money and not tax revenue,” Brooker said.

Brooker noted SRS money goes towards the road department and can only be spent on road department costs, leaving a deficit specifically, in the road budget, but to maintain infrastructure in the county other portions of the county budget will likely be cut.

Last week in Washington D.C., Senator Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon and Mike Crapo (R) of Idaho, introduced a bipartisan bill to renew the Secure Rural Schools program at last year’s levels, to ensure rural counties across the western portion of the nation do not face shortfalls in their annual budgets.

To combat the shortfalls, Hashisaki strongly recommended to the board the fair should implement the policy that if fair attendees park on the fair grounds it will be $5 per vehicle and if you don’t park on the grounds it will be a $5 fee to enter the grounds.

For those who park on the grounds there will be no fee to enter the grounds, and everyone in the vehicle will receive a wristband granting them entrance to the fairgrounds for the aforementioned parking fee.  

The logistics of the proposal are yet to be hammered out but 4-H participants, fair vendors and those looking to camp with their RV’s will be sold their own wristbands at a discounted rate due to their extensive use of the grounds over the period of the fair.

“We have the room to park everybody, especially with the 20 acres in the back, so we should be able to do it without very much of a problem. That is my recommendation to you, otherwise I don’t know how you are going to make the budget,” Hashisaki said.

In order to make the proposed parking plan feasible Hashisaki recommended adding fencing from the pavilion down to the river, for $18,000.

“It’s a one time expense. You will probably see the income from parking go from $30,000-$35,000 up to $55,000 to $60,000,” Hashisaki said.

There was some opposition to altering the parking fee regimen and the board tabled the issue until a later date.

Fair Commission Chairman Chris McGuigan noted his desire to look into other possibilities before the board moved ahead with the parking issue.

“I am going to be quite blunt. I have always been against having a gate fee until it is the last option. I think we can find more revenue with other options,” McGuigan said.

As a way to save money the fair discussed possibilities of limiting the fair’s advertising campaign in the run up to the fair.

However, there was also some opposition to this proposed strategy, as several board members noted the sizeable draw, which the fair’s television advertisements have brought in during past years.

“If you cut your television advertising, you might as well forget about people from Kalispell, Missoula, Spokane and northern Idaho coming here and attending this fair,” Hashisaki said.

Commissioner Brooker emphasized the importance of a successful public relations campaign if the board decided to alter the fee program for September’s fair.

“You really are going to have to do your homework on this one…You are going to have to out to every community in Sanders County and talk about this until there is no tomorrow,” Brooker said.

Brooker suggested forming a community committee to sell the community on the issue if the fair board decided this was the path they wanted to go down to combat potential budgetary issues.

“You are going to have to really believe in it, if you are going to go out and sell this to the community,” Brooker said.

Hashisaki noted the opposition to his proposal but reaffirmed the future budgetary issues facing the fair will necessitate some form of action to make up the funds.

“23 years of my life has been dedicated to the fair and I don’t see any way out. You can’t charge more than what you are charging for events because people are going to object to it, now they are not going to object to pay $5 to park on the ground because they are already used to doing that,” Hashisaki said.