Municipal Liquor Store report presented to City

A compilation report prepared by the accounting firm of Burkhardt & Burkhardt shows that the West Concord Municipal Liquor Store continued to show a net operating loss for the first three months of 2016.
Greg Burkhardt presented the results to the West Concord City Council at its meeting last week.
A compilation, Burkhardt explained, involves taking the records as given and putting them in a financial statement format.
According to the report, the store lost $1,333 from operations although non-operating income from rents and vending machines resulted in a positive income of $182.
“The Liquor Store is going to have some problems this year,” Burkhardt said. “There is a likelihood it might see a loss this year.”
He also pointed out that compared to other municipal liquor operations in the area West Concord has the highest expense as a percentage of sales at 48%. All of the area operations with more than 35% expenses as a percent of sales lost money in 2014, the last year figures were available.
All of these operations were both on- and off-sale, Burkhardt said. Of the  ones that showed an operating profit only two were on- and off-sale, Plainview and Kenyon. The remaining four are off-sale only.
Burkhardt made no recommendations to the council and council members did not discuss the report.
The council did discuss planning for a future utility and street reconstruction project with City Engineer Joe Palen.
Palen said the project was discussed in the 2013 Pavement Management Plan.
Three areas are being considered for reconstruction, he said, including Second and Third Streets between Ellington and Concord Streets; the Highland Street area where storm water drainage improvements are proposed in conjunction with reconstruction of roadways and Parts of Irwin, Arnold, South and Front Streets in the southeast quadrant of the city.
Palen recommended cleaning and televising the sanitary sewers in the project area to determine their existing condition.
The cost of televising all the sanitary sewers in the project area is likely to cost about $7,750, he said, with $1,500 already in the budget. However, any areas that have been televised in the past five years and the tapes are still available would not have to be redone.
Council members decided that the first step should be to see what areas have already been televised and go from there.
Mayor Jeffrey McCool informed the council that 13 individuals had applied for the city manager position and the Personnel Committee had reviewed them and was recommending six for further interviews with the full council.
The council agreed to set up the interviews for June 1 and 2.
Council members also approved the purchase of four pieces of playground equip