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Aquarium finances improve

• Flint RiverQuarium officials report sounder fiancial news at Dougherty County Commission work session.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Dougherty County Commissioners used their work session Monday morning to hear reports from a number of county tax- supported entities.

From the First Tee youth golf program to Keep Albany- Dougherty Beautiful to the Flint RiverQuarium to the special-purpose local-option sales tax-sponsored Bridge House, the commission heard updates on progress and programs at least partially funded by county taxes.

“The income we collected in the first quarter (of the fiscal year), which is always the slowest quarter, is 29 percent of our projected budget for the year,” RiverQuarium CEO Scott Loehr told commissioners. “That’s good news, but what’s even better news is that we’ve kept expenses down so that they represent only 22 percent of our budgeted figures.

“And with 850 school children scheduled to visit this week, we’re expecting a good kickoff to a busy holiday season.”

Since the county and the city of Albany used emergency funds to bail the RiverQuarium out of a severe funding crunch during the summer, aquarium officials have increased the facility’s endowment by $101,000 (to $1,337,567) thanks to an anonymous gift and investment returns.

“Government support (funds) equalled roughly 40 percent of our income for the first quarter,” Loehr said. “We expect that total to diminish each quarter until we’re self- sufficient.”

Commission Chair Jeff Sinyard said the benefits of Loehr’s report were “two- pronged.”

“The information is valuable,” Sinyard said. “And as stewards of the taxpayers’ money, it is important that we maintain responsibility for its use.”

Spurred by suggestions stemming from a business roundtable, Loehr and RiverQuarium Education Manager Melissa Martin announced that the facility had been jointly awarded, along with Atlanta’s Georgia Aquarium, an equally split $120,000 grant to buy equipment that will monitor and educate citizens about pollution of the Flint River.

“Through grant funding, we’ll be able to put real-time data at the community’s fingertips,” Martin told the commission. “And we have programs set up for middle school and high school students that will allow them hands-on access to the data we’re collecting.

“Both programs are aligned with (schools’) curriculum standards.”

County Administrator Richard Crowdis said funds from the grant would be used to buy canoes and trailers that “will be available for years to come.”

KADB Executive Director Judy Bowles, who is being recognized as Georgia’s Clean Community Commission Executive Director of the Year, told commissioners 1,800 volunteers had taken part in her group’s recent Stash the Trash event.

“It was one of those good- news, bad-news things,” Bowles said later. “It’s good that we had that many volunteers, but bad that there was such a need. They collected 48 tons of debris.”

Bowles said seven other tons of debris were collected during a recent Flint River cleanup event.

Albany Tomorrow Inc. Senior Project Manager Ken Cribb updated the commission on the ongoing SPLOST- funded renovation of the Bridge House visitor center, which he said is expected to be finished in May of 2008. Commissioners also were introduced to new ATI CEO Kenneth Weaver.

First Tee Director Burkett Carver told the commission he wants to increase that organization’s youth participation from its current 250 to around 700 this year.

“Our mission is to positively impact the lives of young people through the game of golf, and there is a peaking interest in the activities at First Tee,” Carver said. “There are roughly 12,000 young people in this community in our target age group (8-16), and we want to reach as many as we can.”

Carver said First Tee would attempt to reach youngsters through its summer camps, through a life-skills program with the juvenile justice system (“We want to improve these kids’ lies,” he said.), through professional (PGA) instruction and through the Nancy Lopez Junior Golf Tournament.

“We also have a pilot after- school program with Lincoln Magnet Elementary,” Carver said.

Albany Fire Chief James Carswell asked commissioners to OK an estimated $55,000 in in-kind services through Public Works to improve the fire department’s training center.

“If we can lower the county’s ISO (Insurance Services Office) rating, we’ll save taxpayers money,” Carswell said. “One of the ways we satisfy ISO’s bean-counters is by meeting their requirements.

“We feel we can do our job as well as anyone in the country, but ISO is a bean-counter organization, so we’re gonna count some beans.”

County Public Works Director Larry Cook told the commission Carswell’s requests could be easily met by his workers.

“Chief Carswell’s plan actually calls for limited participation on our part,” Cook said. “And we’ve looked at their plan; it fits in with our schedule.”

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