SPRINGDALE - Ed Clifford navigates the hallways Tuesday at the Jones Center, as chatter from children enrolled in Camp War Eagle buzzes around him.
“Almost everything we are doing has changed,” said Clifford, CEO and president of the center, as he reflected on the past year. “We are doing the right thing. We have kids back in here, adults back in here.”
Layoffs, price increases and program cuts are a few of the changes officials at the Jones Center board instituted to keep the doors open.
“In four years, the center would have been out of money if it kept pulling from the trust the way it was,” Clifford said. “It was burning $5.5 million a year and $23 million was in the [Jones] trust.”
The 220,000-square-foot Jones Center is a recreational facility that includes two indoor swimming pools, a nice-skating rink, indoor track, basketball court, fitness center and meeting spaces.
Use of the center was free when it opened in 1995 as a legacy gift from the late Bernice Jones. It continued to be free until 2008, which some fees were implemented .
Additional fees were instituted in 2012. A fee of $3 was placed on swimming and $5 for entry to the ice-skating rink along with $2 for skate rentals. An annual membership for an adult to use the gym and fitness center now costs $25. A family can receive a gym, fitness and pool membership for $300.
The Jones Trust was established as the funding source for the center. However, Clifford has said that in recent years - after a dip in the stock market - the center was pulling from the principal of the trust.
The market value of the trust’s investments and corporate stocks was $28,021,252 during fiscal 2003, according to Internal Revenue Service documents. The value rose until fiscal 2006 when it reached $38,518,778. It hit a low of $21,634,326 in fiscal 2008. The IRS documents for fiscal 2011 - the most recent available - shows the value at $25,534,560.
The layoff of nine fulltime and 23 part-time workers, along with the closing of programs such as Jones Television cut $800,000 from the center’s 2012 budget, Clifford previously said.
“We want to bring in the same amount that we spend, and we are doing that at this point,” Clifford said.
On Dec. 31, 2012, the center ended fiscal 2012 $729 in the black, according to center documents. Actual expenses were $2,882,014 and revenue was at $2,882,743. The center received $549,084 in cash from the trust. It also received $810,000 from private grants.
A budget for 2013 shows that the center will have $437 leftover after $4,004,202 in expenses are pulled from $4,004,639 in revenue. Revenue from the trust is expected to be $500,000. Another $2,290,000 from private grants has been estimated.
The document shows that the center is projecting $97,125 for membership fees for 2013. It brought in 1,747 for fees in 2012. Revenue from daily-use fees is expected to increase by more than $40,000 from 2012 with $130,446 estimated in 2013.
Clifford said the center is spending below budget.
“We have maintained our spending from last year,” Clifford said. “We have raised some things in the budget, but we have not executed them yet.”
Center officials were unable to provide an actual spending document for 2013.
Zelda Parson, chief financial officer for the center, said the budget is $64,000 “better” than for the same period last year.
IRS forms show that the center had several years in which it spent more than it received. During fiscal 2011, the center spent $567,543 more than its revenue and $138,946 more in 2009.
Clifford said the center’s budget roughly runs about $3.6 million annually. It is made up of $1 million from the trust, $1 million in grants from private organizations and another $1 million from revenue created by the center such as fees and memberships.
A campaign to raise the Jones Trust from $23 million to $50 million is underway, Clifford said. The Care Foundation matched a $10 million Walton Family Foundation grant in 2012.
Clifford said the center will receive $1.7 million from the trust in future years because of the donations.
Partnerships with community organizations are helping the center reprogram and save costs, Clifford said.
“The problem was that it was baby-sitting here,” Clifford said. “We can’t afford to do free baby-sitting. There were parenting classes here that were grant operations but the grants went away and we were still doing the classes. We were doing things that were at one time important to the community, but they were no longer things that we could afford nor were they being used.”
Instead of offering swimming lessons, the center now partners with the American Red Cross to provide that service. It also partners with Camp War Eagle to offer summer programs for youths. Northwest Arkansas Community College is offering college courses on the campus, and the Razorback Athletic Club is paying to use the facilities for meets.
“Five years ago, … this was a place [for kids] to come and hang out,” Clifford said.“Now kids come here and realize this is a place to do something and learn.”
In 2011, the ice arena attracted 90,000 skaters and spectators while more than 100,000 visitors used the gym and fitness centers. The center reported 58,000 visitors at the pool.
Joy Heuer was unable to provide data for 2013 but said it appears that fewer visitors are using the ice rink and more are using the fitness center and pool.
New tracking software was installed this year, Heuer said. For the first half of 2013, the center had 1,807 memberships and 31,738 people paid a day fee.
“This number does not include certain user groups,” Heuer said. “It does not include groups such as the summer day camp campers, special event parties at the center or membership usage.”
Mike Gilbert, chief operating officer, said another thing attracting people to the center is the rental of meeting space. He said several corporate companies have started using the space for meetings.
“Executives are meeting, and families are having fun and enjoying the day,” Gilbert said. “Then the company and families dine together at the end of the day.”
Gilbert said that reminds him of Bernice Jones’ desire to have the center impact families.
Clifford expects the financial changes to help the center sustain itself into the future. However, Clifford and Gilbert said, the center will never again be free to the public.
“One of the first things we had to learn as a team was to forget the word free,” Gilbert said. “There wasn’t enough revenue. There was this perception there was enough money to sustain it. That wasn’t the case.”
Clifford said that when something is offered for free, people don’t respect it. It causes higher maintenance costs. Costs the center will not be able to afford.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/29/2013