Fair board approves year-to-date financials, sets tight timeline for 2025 budget

The Washington County Fair Board approved its year-to-date financial statements through Sept. 30, 2024, and set a compressed schedule for preparing the 2025 budget, board members said at the board’s Nov. 6 meeting.

A staff member who presented the reports said revenue has largely been booked for the year but noted a few items remain outstanding, including monthly transient lodging tax receipts and a roughly $53,000 state payment expected in December or January. “The financial that you have in front of you is year to date through September 30. So it it's looking really good,” the staff member said.

The presenter told the board the fair has added specific ledger accounts this year to track vendor RV fees and vendor utility fees separately and has broken out expenses such as janitorial, safety and security, concessions and commercial vendor costs to improve transparency. The presenter said one outstanding security invoice alone is about $15,000. The board approved the financials by voice/raise-of-hands; the transcript records the motion and a second but does not name the mover or record individual roll-call votes.

Why it matters: Board members said the county’s shortened budget calendar compresses the fair board’s opportunity to review and refine numbers. Staff said the county budget process this year requires department packets by Feb. 10 and that the Board of Commissioners will publish a proposed county budget April 28, with a June public hearing to adopt the FY 2025–26 budget.

Board members agreed to a calendar to draft and approve the fair board’s requested budget: staff committed to send a draft by Dec. 20, board members were asked to submit questions by Jan. 3 (the presenter said Jan. 6 originally but the board asked for an earlier deadline), and the fair board scheduled a meeting at 2 p.m. Jan. 8 to review and (if ready) approve the draft for submission on Feb. 10.

The presenter cautioned that some inputs — notably transient lodging tax (TLT) projections from the county — sometimes change between the board’s approval and the county’s final submission, requiring minor later adjustments. The board discussed options to handle the compressed timeline, including an extended January meeting or a follow-up Zoom session before the Feb. 10 packet deadline.

The meeting packet and discussion also covered operational bookkeeping detail: earlier-year practice had mixed parking revenues into general fares; staff said separating categories revealed the true cost of parking operations and prompted similar separation for vendor fees and utilities. The board heard that local security and sheriff’s hours had substantially exceeded contracted estimates this year; according to the presenter, the sheriff’s department logged roughly $250,000 of service hours but the county had previously negotiated a set payment for the fair, and the presenter said next year the fair will pay actual costs.

The board approved the financials and moved on to presentations on the 2025 fair planning and other agenda items.

(Approved action recorded in the meeting minutes: “Approve the financials for fiscal year 24–25 through 09/30/2024.” Outcome: approved by voice/raise-of-hands; mover/second not specified in transcript.)