FINANCE/SUPPORT
Financials:
The Recreation Centers of Sun City, Inc. (RCSC) ended February within its operating and capital budget year to date. All Divisions except Bowling, Golf, and Food & Beverage have met or exceeded their net operating budget projections year to date.
Bowling was ($9.3k) unfavorable to budget due to timing of the purchase of $17.0k worth of bowling pins, budgeted in the month of May.
Golf was ($10.7k) unfavorable due to Public and Guest Greens Fees being ($27.1k) and ($20.5k) under budget, respectively, partially offset by a $29.0k favorable variance in Chemicals purchasing.
Food & Beverage was ($9.3k) unfavorable due to Equipment Repair ($9.9k) unfavorable due to budget.
Operating Income for February totaled $2,670k and was ($20.5k) unfavorable due to the Golf revenue items mentioned above. Operating expenses for the month were $1,867k and $105.4k favorable to budget due to Wages and Benefits being $120.2k favorable to budget. Through the end of February, the Net Excess from Operations (Gross Income less Total Operating Expenses) was favorable to Budget by $591k. This favorable variance was 44% of the actual Net Operating expense year-to-date. This favorable year-to-date Operating Excess was due to the $719.6k favorable Operating Excess variance, offset by a ($135.4k) shortfall in Total Income year-to-date.
Purchasing:
In February, the new Purchasing Department continued to bring existing vendors under formal Master Service Agreements, drafting 15 agreements and executing five in February. Purchasing has identified a state purchasing contract that RCSC is eligible to join, under which we get favorable pricing from many of our existing vendors. Purchasing has begun to migrate key vendors over to this purchasing contract. Purchasing has obtained three quotes to replace many of our old company vehicles and will be completing the bid package in March. Purchasing continues to review available software options to better track our vendors’ certificates of insurance.
Cardholder Services:
Payments on past due assessments in February were 17.5% of past due balances. Overall accounts receivable increased in February by 0.3% and are down (1.9%) from the end of 2023. Overall accounts receivable for past due balances decreased in February by (6.3%). January assessments went 30 days past due at a rate of 6.2% and December assessments went 60 days past due at a rate of 2.9%.
Payments from third-party collections firms totaled $26,305 in February and totaled $35,711 year-to-date. February payments made through the online Web Portal totaled $257,167 from 467 property owners. Year-to-date online Web Portal payments totaled $470,703 from 859 property owners.
In February, property transfer balances increased by 1.2%. Outstanding balances related to property transfers represent 53% of all receivables and 54% of past due balances. February trustee sale notices on Sun City AZ properties decreased to 15, and properties owned by lending institutions remained at 2.
Safety:
Safety and Compliance is a newly created department that is responsible for all aspects of security and safety at RCSC, including responding to all Incident Reports, interfacing with insurance companies on claims, operating RCSC’s security cameras and access control systems, and responding to Member concerns submitted via comment cards.
RCSC will implement a new online member service request system, replacing paper Comment Cards. A beta release of this new system will be released at the end of March. Safety will be requesting engagement and feedback from Members prior to the full system release.
New first aid cabinets and AEDs have been installed throughout our facilities to bring RCSC into compliance with OSHA/ANSI standards for workplace safety. Basic first aid supplies, band-aids and ice packs are available if individuals are injured while using RCSC amenities and an incident report is required. First Aid, CPR, and AED training is scheduled for RCSC employees in April. This class is voluntary to start (all staff should be trained by this fall), and will be scheduled by supervisors, staff who participate will be paid. Classes will be held at Grand and Fairway Centers. Training will be conducted by the Safety & Compliance Manager and training will be performed by a Sun City Fire & Medical EMS firefighter who has done the training in the past. An email calendar was provided to department managers for staff sign-ups.
Comment Cards responded to in February: 343
Incident Reports investigated in February: 28
Human Resources:
Human Resources added 14 requisitions during the month of February and filled 12 requisitions, ending the month with 8 open positions. Year-to-date, HR has opened 31 requisitions and filled 28 open positions. The time-to fill requisition KPI in February was 4.9 days. The February turnover rate was 3.0% or 35.8% on an annualized basis. Year-to-date annualized turnover was 28.2% which slightly exceeds the 27.3% annualized turnover rate of February 2023.
FACILITIES
Projects:
In Process:
Mountain View Recreation Center
- Preparing RFP for architectural design services; expect release by 3/28/2024.
Sun Bowl Softball Field Improvements (PIF) STATUS GREEN
- Budget $1.38M. Total cost to date $446,305
- Project began 11/27/2023
- Contractor: Robert E. Porter Construction
- Expected project duration: 6 months
Viewpoint Lake Repair (PIF) STATUS GREEN
- Budget $8.0M Total cost to date $7.59M
- Procuring two new fountains. Expect installation early April
Recently Completed:
Bell Recreation Center
- Remodel of Ceramics Club. Work included painting, new flooring, new ceiling tiles. Project was completed on 2/29/24 at a cost of $147,263. General Contractor RCSC Projects Group
- Installed new LED lights over billiard tables. Project was completed on 2/9/24 at a cost of $8,800. Contractor Copper King Electric
- Added additional LED lighting in the fitness room. Project was completed on 2/8/24 at a cost of $11,250. Contractor Copper King Electric
Fairway Recreation Center
- Added 200-amp panel to support more electrical outlets for the Computer Club. Project was completed on 3/1/24 at a cost of $49,488. Contractor Accel Electric
- Installed new LED lighting at the east parking lot. Project was completed on 2/14/24 at a cost of $17,203. Contractor Copper King Electric
Lakes Pro Shop
- Replaced old fluorescent lighting and replaced with new LED lighting. Project was completed on 2/27/24 at a cost of $12,150. Contractor Copper King Electric
Lakeview Recreation Center
- Installed new LED lights over billiard tables. Project was completed on 2/9/24 at a cost of $7,700. Contractor Copper King Electric
Marinette Recreation Center
- Added drop-down electrical outlets for the Clay Club. Project was completed on 2/1/24 at a cost of $3,000. Contractor Copper King Electric
- Added 10-foot wall mounted ballet bars in auditorium. Project was completed on 1/16/24 at a cost of $4,519. Vendor Exquisite Painting
Work Orders (skilled trades repair & maintenance):
Facilities had 177 open work orders as of March 1, and completed 548 work orders in February. The average time to close a work order in February was 31 days. Facilities has completed a total of 883 work orders in 2024.
Lawn Bowls:
Green speeds range from a low of 12.9 seconds at Mountain View to a high of 14.0 seconds at Lakeview West. Moisture readings range from a low of 7.5 at Lakeview West to a high of 10.2 at Oakmont. The lawn bowl greens are being mowed once per week, and the “Billy Goat” is being used once per week to clean the greens.
Grounds:
We mow the softball field twice a week and grade the infield four times a week. Getting ready to do our summer maintenance program, trimming bushes around the centers and spraying weeds. Mowing Lakeview and Sunbowl once a week. Putting rocks around Mountain view mini golf. Pulling brush out at Marinette between the pickleball courts.
Information Technology:
Ticket numbers are staying steady; however, we continue to do training which helps to keep ticket numbers down.
The Infrastructure Project first phase migration to the new TEG server is now completed. We are estimating the end of February into March for completion of the migration to the new server environment.
The IT Department is working on several projects simultaneously. These projects overlap and the staff is working to get through them. Updating of the WIFI environment, updating of the RCSC telephone system; going from several outdated systems to integrating to one new system, and also the re-wiring of the Bell Center.
Multiple COX outages in February, we understand they are upgrading their nodes that are within Sun City. We have asked COX if we can have fiber run to the major Rec Centers, waiting to see if COX will waive the construction cost.
Major Accomplishments/Progress for February:
New cubicles have been installed, and the IT staff have moved into their new offices. With the addition of Diane and Ken, we are fully staffed. There are about two dozen employees in the new network environment.
Our inventory is complete, over 95 PC/Laptops have been replaced to date, also 32 printers replaced and over 34 have been taken out of service. IT has built over 15 PCs/Laptops in December. 2 new laptops for Accounting; 5 PCs for Starters, and 1 for Bowling. Also, bult but not deployed, 5 PCs for the FA environment which will be deployed later.
Oakmont & Bell rewiring projects are complete.
Sundial new cables for HVAC completed.
Working on new Teams phones for RCSC.
Working on new WIFI project.
Working with Facilities on the baseball field project
Working with Bluekey on telephone evaluation
GOLF
Superintendent Update – Mike Wermers North – Tif Tuf:
The Back 9 fairways (common Bermuda grass) went dormant the week of October 16th causing the height to be .250” almost instantly, due to the high traffic, inferior grass, and pre-emergent. The Front 9 fairways (Tif Tuf) went dormant the week of December 25th. The Tif Tuf held up to the cart traffic better, the height did not drop to .250” until the week of January 1st.
The week of February 5th, the Tif Tuf started to come out of dormancy which was 6 weeks. The fairways became green the week of February 12th. With this, North has been mowing them 3-4 days a week at .400” to help push Tif Tuf growth, and to stunt/kill the common Bermuda left in the fairway. With the Tif Tuf growing actively, it is beginning to choke out common in areas. The front 9 collars slowly came out of dormancy, as a result of a lot of Poa Annua growing in them, resulting in a little bit of a growth ding.
We met with the Tif Tuf expert on February 15th, he was pleased to see the condition of the Tif Tuf. He did comment how even though the grass looked ‘flat’, it looked a lot better than the common in the rough. He gave the ‘flat’ comment due to us pushing the growth to dormancy. He said that others in the valley that have matured Tif Tuf had constant growth all winter long and were able to keep the height of cut very close all season long and we should have the same results. He did say that Poa was going to be a problem for us this season because we were not able to pre-emerge and post-emerge the weeds due to the grass being so new. Going into spring, we will continue to push the Tif Tuf; allowing spring pre-emergent to be applied. He suggested some great fertilizers to use in the summer to really give it a push. We will be implementing them all summer.
PRO SHOPS:
- 05% of total rounds played by Annual (Resident) No Fee Passholders YTD
- 04% of total rounds played by Annual Surcharge Passholders YTD
- 13% of total rounds played by Resident Cardholders YTD
- 27% of total rounds played by Annual (Non-Resident) Passholders YTD
- 27% of total rounds played by Public Golfers YTD
- 57% of total rounds played by Guests
- 06% of total rounds played by Staff
The bump rate (those golfers requesting a tee time through the lottery that were unsuccessful), continues to show improvement over prior year. We had an increase in the number of requests of 8.15% (18,125 in 2023 vs. 19,603 in 2024), however, the number of golfers bumped dropped by 2.38% (2,324 in 2023 vs. 2,046 in 2024). Overall, our bump rate was 10.44% for the month, we did not include leap day in our comparisons to keep the data comparison consistent.
We recently had discovered that the system the lottery uses to ‘punish’ users that no-show had been turned on when the new portal was released. While it was always our intention to utilize this system, it was not our intention to roll it out without notice. Through conversations with our provider, we also discovered that the system they put in place was also affecting those that cancelled as well as were a no-show. We understand the logic behind this system but do not feel that in our environment those who take the time to cancel should be treated the same as a no-show. Therefore, we have asked our provider to only place a negative rating on those that are a no-show. Users are given a weighting based on the ratio of the number of lottery reservations paid for/the number of no-shows recorded. Therefore, it is important that if you are not going to be able to make a previously scheduled reservation that you take the time to cancel the reservation ahead of time.
Snack Shops:
BOWLING
In February of 2024, Bowling lineage totaled 33,925, compared to 31,720 in February 2023, an increase of 7%. Year-to-date lineage through February 2024 totaled 68,211 lines, compared to 66,010 through February 2023, an increase of 3%.
Bowling revenue in February 2024 totaled $96,126 which was 11% higher than the February 2023 revenue of $86,793. Year-to-date, 2024 Bowling revenue was $193,308, or 17% greater than the total revenue through February 2023.
Activities:
Sunday Nights at Sun Bowl run through April. There is a printable PDF with the band line-up on the RCSC website, (Recreation tab, then Events & Entertainment, scroll down to Sun Bowl, click here for printable PDF) from there you click on the links which you will get a background of the band performing the show. These shows are free to RCSC Members and their escorted guests. All Members are required to show their RCSC Member cards or Privleged card with photo for entry; key fobs are not accepted.
Communications:
The Communications Department has been updating the information on the website to reflect more accurate information.
The Welcome Center had 868 guests in February and hosted 4 Sun City Welcome Experience tours. These tours go around Bell Center with Welcome Packets. Information collected is being analyzed to determine the best use and how we can improve the recreation for the members.
Clubs:
Club rosters were due March 1, 2024; to date, 90% of the rosters have been submitted. The Club’s office is processing them and responding to Club Presidents.
The RCSC Chartered Clubs are required to complete their IRS E990 filings for submission to the IRS by May 15, 2024. The Chartered Clubs Office will be holding classes and will be meeting with individual clubs on how to submit this form.
The 2025 Club Budget requests are due to the Chartered Club Office by May 1, 2024.
Centers:
The Centers were busy this past month. There were three big events around the community, the Pickleball Tournament at Marinette, Quilt Show at Fairway, and the Wisconsin Days event at the Sun Bowl.
Ongoing events include the Sunday Outdoor Concerts, Bingo, and the Wednesday Concerts. The Center Associates play a pivotal role in maintaining the facilities, setting up for the different events and their required layouts and tearing them down while getting the facilities ready for the next event.