Superintendents are finding more room in their annual budgets to replace aging equipment, according to the past three years of State of the Industry studies by GCI.
Since 2012, superintendents responding to the annual survey ranked the top budget challenges facing them in the upcoming year. While “equipment replacement” spiked in 2013, it’s started to come down again in the 2014 survey.
In the first year of the survey, just five percent of respondents thought of equipment replacement as the top budgeting concern, well behind labor costs at 25 percent and energy/electricity costs at 30 percent. But that number jumped to 31 percent in 2013, leaving fuel costs in the dust at 12 percent as superintendents started to run into the end of the road for equipment that had just been getting repaired during the downturn. The next year saw fewer superintendents forced into that position, but still a full 22 percent said replacing equipment was the toughest challenge in 2014.
Even after the downturn, almost half of superintendents were more apt to try to get course equipment to last another few seasons rather than fight a constricting budget to buy a new machine. In 2012, 53 percent of superintendents cut the equipment budget, among other tactics. That jumped to 68 percent in 2013, further split to a full 71 percent for non-private clubs. In 2014, 49 percent of respondents said they had to reduce equipment replacement spending, about as much as reduced chemical and fertilizer applications or full-time labor. In fact, in each year, replacement equipment reduction came in almost the same totals as full-time labor reductions – why buy new machines without the crew to run them?
Three years of continued budget cuts to equipment helps explain why so many superintendents have to stretch each dollar as far as possible. Even for non-capital equipment replacement, the total dropped from an average of $60,000 in 2012 to $26,700 in 2014. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the percentage of superintendents whose primary focus for capital spending from year to year is on equipment purchases. From 2012 at 55 percent to 2014 at 56 percent, the shift is never more than three percent. Comparatively, the next largest category for all three years contains tee building and renovation projects, as well as erosion and drainage issues. Of those planned capital purchases, the biggest picks are almost all smaller equipment like sprayers, rough mowers, fans and trim mowers. The next biggest contender in all three years is the utility vehicle, followed by the greensmower.
Superintendents are getting more confident about their equipment purchases from year to year. Though in some cases, it’s just because the equipment can’t be repaired any more, downturn or not. Check out this year's State of the Industry survey for more statistics by clicking HERE.