Western Stampede numbers buck reports of being in the black

Contrary to what was originally reported in a presentation to the city council on Oct. 12, this year’s Western Stampede did not make $25,000 over expenditures, but just came close to breaking even.

“The report that the rodeo made money was incorrect, and I knew it at the time,” Mayor Melissa Johnson said at the Nov. 10 town hall meeting. “I knew all the money wasn’t there. But because I wasn’t able to say that it wasn’t correct, and that this is the true number, we just kind of let it go.”

She found it a little annoying, because in her opinion the people presenting the report also knew the numbers weren’t correct, but the numbers don’t make it sound as good, Johnson said.

The good news is that the event lost less this year than in previous years, which is comforting to know, Johnson said.

“And if you look at an event the size of the rodeo and say, it costs $9,000 to the taxpayers, and as tax payers you can go, maybe it was worth $9,000. And maybe next year we’ll break even,” Johnson said.

But there are also soft costs that have to be taken into consideration, namely overtime for city employees, Johnson said. Between the fire department, police department and public works employees working overtime, the bill adds up to $60,000. The mayor named offered two solutions to making the event more profitable.

The first is to cut back on the number of people providing those services and use volunteer help.

“I’m not talking about the people who do public safety, but the people who do public works,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t matter who cleans the bleachers after the rodeo. So I think we can cut back if we can find more volunteers willing to go and help out with some of the maintenancewe could lower those costs.”

Another option is to sell beer.

“If we sell beer at the rodeo, we make enough beer sales to easily pay the additional costs associated with it,” Johnson said. “I’m not promoting the idea we sell beer; I’m just saying that would be one solution to the fact we lose money every year.”