JANESVILLE — The Woodman’s Sports & Convention Center is running $177,000 in the red after its first full year of operation.
That’s not exactly a surprise based on earlier City of Janesville predictions, but the financial shortfall at the city-owned facility off Milton Avenue does have one clear driver: a sizable gap between the cost of programming at the center and what the center is able to do to generate revenue.
City of Janesville Finance Director David Godek shared a city analysis of the facility’s first 12 months Monday night, showing a key revenue shortfall in athletic programming, which he said fell about $440,000 shy of the overall $761,000 the city hoped such programs would bring in during the center’s first year.
That gap is the biggest driver in a $500,000 shortfall in overall revenue, as the Woodman’s Center drew just over $1.5 million, compared to the approximately $2 million the city had projected in earlier budget estimates.
Godek reminded the council in his presentation the city has projected the Woodman’s Center will need an operating subsidy for its first five years of operation.
He said the financial picture this month, coming out of the first full year of operation for the Woodman’s Center, includes a period last year when the center was new and ramping up, and it also includes the first summer slow season.
Godek pointed out that through slow periods in activity, and during the busy hockey season, the city and the Woodman’s Center’s management company, Sports Facilities Management, were working to calibrate how to run different programs in real time — for the first time.
“We weren’t getting a new facility to replace an existing facility,†Godek said. “We were getting a facility that we never had any experience operating.â€
Sports Facilities Management had better luck in the fist year controlling costs, with the city’s analysis showing an initial budget of $2.4 million in expenses. Godek said Sports Facilities Management actually kept costs to $2.1 million, largely through doing what he called a “good job†controlling labor expenditure.
The $177,000 deficit at the Woodman’s Center includes last year’s operations for about four months, and 2026 operations from January to now.
Godek pointed out that the Woodman’s Center still has four months left of this year for its outlook to brighten. The center’s entering its second hockey season, and the management company has a year’s worth of logistics and operational experience now under its belt.
The losses the Woodman's Center now sees are being softened by the donation of city hotel-motel tax proceeds by the Janesville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. Godek said that another upcoming installment of donated receipts from the tourism bureau could further draw down ongoing losses.
City Council member Heather Miller asked the city for more granular information on which operations at the center were more profitable and which were less profitable — data she said she’d asked the city for weeks ago.
“I’m looking for hours. I’m look for numbers,†Miller said, saying she liked hearing some basic information on how much time the arena spent in its ice configuration, and how much time it spent converted to hard surface in the spring and summer, for other sports.
Miller asked the city to dig deeper in its numbers to show the council in further reporting how certain programming or uses at the center helped the facility profit, and which uses were more of a financial drain.
“Do we need to look at having more or less (hard surface or ice)?†Miller said. “It’s hard to see where our money is being made and where our money is being spent.â€