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Sun City rec board hears $1.6M budget shortfall; management vows tighter controls
Summary
The Recreation Centers of Sun City board reviewed a year-to-date unfavorable budget variance of $1,624,000, discussed golf revenue declines and incident-reporting increases, and heard management outline tighter month-to-month controls and training to curb costs and improve reporting.
Treasurer Borsky reported year-end balances and a significant variance in operations, saying the corporation was "unfavorable to budget by $1,624,000." The treasurer listed fund balances, including unrestricted funds of $13,700,000 (which include a $2,500,000 cash reserve), a Preservation and Improvement Fund (PIF) balance of $36,500,000, a capital reserve of $5,800,000 and a carryforward balance of $6,700,000.
Board members pressed management on causes and remedies. Director Preston said the shortfall meant "we just can't sustain like this." General Manager Matthew De Lazanski attributed much of the gap to weather and price-driven declines in golf demand and to higher heat-related expenses. "So what we're doing, and we've already started on it, we're gonna look at a closer month to month and try to see beforehand what the projections look like," De Lazanski told the board, adding that management will bring a set of controls for review after a senior-leader meeting.
Finance senior leader Kevin McCurdy clarified fund accounting after several board questions: investment income in PIF and the capital reserve "stays in the PIF fund" and is not available for operations, he said, explaining that a favorable other‑income variance at the corporate level offset the net operating shortfall on paper but does not represent a transfer of those restricted funds into operations.
Directors also raised operational items tied to finances: proposals to post golf-fee comparisons for members, stronger bid solicitation for vendors, exploring temporary course closures for maintenance, and closer tracking of snack-shop pricing. On incident reporting, the general manager said increased staff training likely raised the number of incidents recorded and asked for a trends report breaking non-medical incidents into categories so the board could see patterns rather than individual names.
The board accepted the management report after discussion and asked staff to deliver the requested trending data and the detailed control measures planned for 2025.
