Fair board meets to discuss budget, communications

The Great Northern Fair Board met for a special meeting at Lakeside Construction Thursday, where the finances of the fairgrounds and the need for better communications between the manager and board members was discussed.

Board members reiterated that it was important that expenses be cut and more revenue be brought in for the fairgrounds.

“We need more revenue and we need to use the revenue appropriately,” board Vice-Chair Tyler Smith said.

The meeting came a week after members of the board’s Finance Committee and board Chair Paul McCann met with the Hill County Commission, which told them that the fair board needs to watch its spending.

Finance Committee Chair Ray Kallenberger said unnecessary spending accounts for some of the fairgrounds current financial state.

“We just went through it like it was water,” he said.

Expenses, he said, shot up, and before people spent money they did not stop and ask if what they were spending money on was needed.

Though the facilities on the grounds are deteriorating, Kallenberger said, if the board does not have money they have to watch what they are spending.

Board member Chelby Gooch said there has been a rise in the money paid for wages since 2014, when now Havre Mayor Tim Solomon was fairgrounds manager.

McCann said Solomon was the last full-time manager of the fairgrounds and since then the county changed the fair manager position from salaried to 30-hours a week with comp and overtime pay.

“So what Tim had the ability to do was work real hard in one season, and then during the winter, he could take less time on the facility and make it all work,” McCann said.

He added that right now the fairgrounds manager is listed as a 30-hour a week position, hours that are too few for a manager to meet the current goals set by the board.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said the job of fair manager can be restructured so that hours are not constant throughout the season.

In and around the fair the position could be full-time and have the hours cut back in winter, which would allow the fairgrounds to stay within its expected budget.

She also said rather than have a monthly document for Brewer’s hours that his hours be documented on a weekly basis so the board would not be blindsided by a lack of funds or hours.

McLean added there is not just one thing to blame for the current fairgrounds’ revenue troubles.

Board members were in agreement saying weather and aging infrastructure, among other things, also accounted for the loss of revenue.

“It’s a little bit of everything,” board member Scott Doney said.

He added that increased revenue does not always have to mean dollars and cents.

The board must establish relationships with the county departments, such as the Hill County Road Department, and local citizens.

“There is no dollar exchange there for any of us, but we just need to work together,” Doney said.

He added that important relationships have been lost in recent years.

“We’ve run people off, chased business away and quite literally we cannot afford to do that,” Doney said.

Kallenberger said he has had members of the public tell him they will not come back to the grounds because they have been treated rudely by Brewer.

“I’ve had people come up to me and say he is just very rude to these people and they just get shell-shocked and say ‘we won’t put up with this,’” Kallenberger said.

Brewer did not show up until later in the meeting.

Money has also been spent on occasion without authorization of the board.

Doney said LED lights had been installed in the Beef Barn without the knowledge of board members, while Gooch said Brewer had purchased a white board for the Bigger Better Barn without anyone’s permission.

Brewer said at the meeting he was told to get the white board.

“We have to work beyond this as a board with this communication, and if a person has a problem with a decision the manager made intentionally or because of confusion,” McCann said.

He added that a new fair manager often needs mentoring by the board, something that is hard for them to provide given that the members have other professional and personal responsibilities.

Gooch said rather than have a fairgrounds manager who works with the public, helps organize the fair and keeps track of the budget, that the fair just have a grounds keeper.

“To me it just makes more sense to have a grounds keeper and not do a manager, because I’ve been here (on the board) now with two managers with the same ending, the same situation and it failed,” she said.

Ron Koneski, the newest fair board member, said he thinks the fairgrounds needs a person for the public to be able to contact.

“I truly feel the fair needs a manager,” Koneski said.

McCann said that if the board is to take duties away from the fair manager, a decision has to be made as to who will perform that work or the board will have to reaccess its goals for the grounds.

He said because the board is made up entirely of volunteers, it could be hard for board members to perform some of those duties.

McCann said that when the fairgrounds was between managers, they had to perform, the functions of manager, something members had trouble effectively doing.

The board also discussed the fee schedule for use of the fairgrounds being outdated, and said they would look into it in the future.