Source: Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
Spanish Fork, Utah - Flip on a light switch anywhere in town and you could be paying to water the 18th green.
That seems to be a common scenario as city leaders annually transfer cash from the city's electric utility fund to the Spanish Oaks Golf Course fund to keep the facility solvent. For the past eight years, keeping the course green has run operating funds into the red, said City Councilman Chris Wadsworth.
During the 2003-04 fiscal year, which ended June 30, city leaders moved $231,612 from the electric fund into the golf course fund. Then they moved an additional $23,943 to bolster the snack bar budget at the clubhouse. The transfers are made at the end of the fiscal year to balance the city's books.
The golf course isn't paying its way, recreation director Dale Robinson noted last summer when activity on the course was at its height.
"We're marketing it (in an effort) to turn it around," he said. "There are lots of golf courses around."
The competition from other Utah County courses is as rough as the pocked shell of a golf ball.
Through October of the current fiscal year, the golf course brought in $276,846 and spent $194,231. The course generates no revenue during the winter months, City Manager Dave Oyler said, while the city continues paying employees who spend the off-season maintaining equipment and looking after the 12th annual Festival of Lights at nearby Canyon Park. The festival lights are turned on in November and are operated nightly through Jan. 1.
Construction of a bridge on the road to the golf course hurt the facility's bottom line last year. The project shut down Power Road, the main route leading to the city-owned course, making it difficult for golfers to get there without taking the long way around. A good number didn't bother.
Spanish Oaks has another handicap as well -- canyon winds that makes play difficult before 10 a.m., Robinson said.
Some of the transferred money went to lease 70 new golf carts, which cost nearly $41,000 last year. The lease agreement will provide new carts every four years.
The golf course maintained its old carts for 10 years, but that effort entailed a steady flow of repairs, officials said.
The storm drain budget, with $240,000 in projects, also received a boost from residents electric fund, with a $201,995 transfer last year.
By using surplus money from city utilities -- most often the electric fund -- city leaders can avoid increasing property taxes, but residents foot the cost either way.
City leaders say using utility funds is a more fair approach because renters who use city-owned facilities also help to pay for them.