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Home My WebLink About2023-11-27 - Minutes -Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission Minutes November 27, 2023 Fayetteville Town Center Commissioners Present: Commissioners Absent: Staff: Todd Martin, Chair Tourism & Hospitality Representative Andrew Prysby, Commissioner at-large Mike Wiederkehr, City Council Representative Chrissy Sanderson, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Katherine Kinney, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Sarah Bunch, City Council Representative Elvis Moya, Tourism & Hospitality Representative n/a Molly Rawn, CEO; Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance I. Chair Martin called the meeting to order at 2:00 pm and declared a quorum. II. Old Business A. Chair Martin presented the October minutes and hearing no additions or corrections, he stated that the minutes stood approved as presented. III. New Business A. CEO Report. Rawn began with personnel updates which included Julie Pennington being promoted to Director of Destination Services and reporting that interviews were underway for all three open positions: Tourism Sales Manager at EF and Event Services Coordinator Level 1 and Facilities Technician at the town center. She then shared that we’ve held our first meeting with Coraggio Group to begin Master Tourism Planning. VP of Sales Tina Archer Cope has attended several conferences and tradeshows in October including a TEAMS tradeshow where she, alongside other state DMO’s and Arkansas Tourism, took over 70 appointments. Rawn then shared several events we’ve helped host and their Economic Impact (EI) including Arkansas Optometric Association with an EI of over $200,000, the Arkansas Country Blues and Stringband Festival with an EI of $15,000 and the NWA Urban Land Institute Place Summit with an EI of $50,000. She noted that the route development team for the Fayetteville Bikepacking Roots Project was in town doing exploration work and that the US Pro Cup Mountain Bike event will be returning to Fayetteville March 7th, 2024. In lieu of a marketing report, we’ve rolled up several of the updates into the CEO report including an AY Magazine 4 page travel feature in this month’s issue, adding several new dual sport and bicycle routes and itineraries to our website and we also piloted a successful media preview event for Lights of the Ozarks this year with several media outlets covering it. The 2024 proposed commission meeting calendar was proposed with questions and it will be sent out to commissioners as calendar invites. Rawn presented HMR which reflected YTD through September activity which overall is up nearly 8% compared to last year’s YTD. B. Financial Report. Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance VP Walker stated that the financial report is in the packet with a P&L through October and a Balance Sheet. The target revenue and expense percentage is 83% and our revenue is at 84% with expenditures at 78%. HMR collections are shown at $4.1 million, and we have a net operating income of approximately $606,000. Our balance sheet, including our cash and investments are approximately $4.8 million dollars. Rawn asked Walker to expound on the balance sheet and Walker did, reminding everyone that fund balance numbers are updated once a year and that the fund balance is a calculation of total assets minus total liabilities. We have a lot of property included in our fund balance. C. Vote. Outright Agency. Rawn presented an overview of the Outright Agency memo and, alongside Commissioner Prysby, shared some slides from Outright Agency including their list of clients. Commissioner Prysby said he’s very impressed with their media buying and how their system will allow us to change this buying as needed. Rawn shared the budgetary impact aspect of the memo. It is a MSA, managed service agreement, for just one year and we would be able to submit it next year for renewal if we are happy with the services. The MSA as stated could serve us for three years. With no further questions from commissioners, Chair Martin called for a vote. Commissioner Kinney voted to authorize the CEO to enter into an agreement with Outright Agency which was seconded by Commissioner Prysby. It was approved unanimously via a roll call vote. CEO Rawn stated that we had several great choices in proposals, and we are excited about this new venture. D. Presentation. 2024 Proposed Budget The 2024 budget snapshot includes $6,196,472 in outflows and $6,167,440 in revenue with the goal of funding our capital improvements from our reserves. Revenues include: HMR Taxes - 84% Town Center – 10% Special Projects (ArtCourt, Downtown funding from city of Fayetteville, etc) – 3% Earned Revenue – 2% Outflows include: Personnel – 34% Programmatic – 40% Administration – 7% Facilities – 6% Bond payment – 11% Reserves - <2% Key Changes in the 2024 budget include: HMR Tax Revenue – 5% increase FTC updates and revenue goals Downtown Funding from the city of Fayetteville Retirement matching increase from 3 to 5% We have earmarked the Community Investment fund at $130,000. The Clinton House Museum funding has decreased 17% at up to $50,000 for 2024. The $130,000 for community events includes approved distributions generally in the $500 to $3,500 range and proposals are accepted year-round from January 1st until funds are exhausted. The budget includes significant capital investments for 2024 including: Experience Fayetteville offices (public bathroom and office updates) - $511,000 FTC Chairs Replacement - $155,000 FTC Audio Visual - $150,000 Proposed expenditures from the Cyclo-Cross Legacy Funds include a printed cycling guide that includes route development, sponsorship of the Joe Martin Stage Race and professional development funds which will cover attending UCI/Bike City trainings and more. VP of Finance Walker reviewed our fund balance which contains approximately $5,660,000 which excludes our capital and operating reserves but does include our real estate holdings. We have $1 million in our operating reserves, which is about 65 days of operation. She then reviewed the capital reserves schedule. If the town center makes all of the proposed improvements, the capital reserves will be depleted and the commission has several options to either replenish this reserve or not. We will still have a healthy unreserved fund balance after all these proposed updates. Questions about the proposed budget were sought at this time. Chair Martin asked if Rawn and Walker were comfortable with projecting a 5% increase in HMR and they both were, with Walker stating that was a very conservative amount. Rawn continued stating that this budget does include a $200,000 pledge to TheatreSquared and we will let their board leadership know we’d like to bring a revised MOU that includes an annual presentation to the commission and also includes a board seat for the A&P. We can vote on a revised MOU at an upcoming commission meeting. Commissioner Sanderson asked about the increase in the Sales and Development line item and it was stated that the increase reflected including the Tourism Master Plan contract with Coraggio Group. Rawn added that the large increase from 2023 in the Meeting category reflected a sponsorship amount for the Music Cities Conference we are hosting in 2025. Chair Martin called for a motion to approve the budget as presented in the voting document. Commissioner Sanderson made this motion with Commissioner Prysby seconding it and the 2024 proposed budget passed unanimously. With no other business, Chair Martin thanked everyone and said he appreciated serving as chair these last two years and looked forward to continuing to serve next year in a non-chair seat with another commissioner stepping into the chair role in January. I. Announcements CEO Rawn had an announcement in which she thanked Brannon Pack, Director of Cycling Tourism who said thank you and goodbye to all as he transitions to a regional role which will allow him to continue to work with our organization on projects from time to time. The commission shared their appreciation for his professional contributions. IV. Adjourn With no further business, Chair Martin adjourned at 3:22pm Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations, Experience Fayetteville