Spirit Mountain’s Secret Budget

By John Ramos

On October 16, 2008, as a natural outgrowth of my research on the Great Lakes Aquarium, I began attending board meetings of the Spirit Mountain Recreation Area Authority.

Spirit Mountain and the aquarium have much in common. Both are large tourist attractions. Both are state authorities. Both are subsidized by Duluth’s tourism tax. Both have former city finance directors on their boards (Les Bass is at the aquarium, Todd Torvinen at Spirit Mountain) and both have family connections as well—Terry Mattson, executive director of Visit Duluth, is a board member at the aquarium; Renee Mattson, Terry’s wife, is executive director of Spirit Mountain.

Whereas aquarium board members have come to expect my presence at their meetings, it may have been something of a surprise to the Spirit Mountain board to have me auditing the proceedings with a tape recorder.

After my first meeting, I asked Renee Mattson for copies of the documents that the board had discussed and voted on. This included a memo from Johnson Controls to Mattson discussing “funding solutions” for Spirit Mountain’s master plan. The memo also contained language setting Johnson Controls’ initial consulting fee for Spirit Mountain at $70,000.

Johnson Controls, of course, is better known for its role in perpetuating and profiting from the Duluth School District’s enormously expensive Red Plan.

At first, Mattson said I couldn’t have the memo because she hadn’t signed it yet. I informed her that the memo had been approved in a public meeting of a public authority, and that the memo was public property. If she needed to sign it, she could do so now. If she needed a pen, I could give her one.

Renee was not happy with me, I could tell, but she finally relented and gave me a copy of the memo. In following meetings, I had no trouble getting copies of documents discussed by the board. Until it came time for the board to discuss their budget. And that is where today’s story begins.

The first thing I noticed when I strolled into the Fireside Room on March 19, 2009 was that everyone seemed a little cranky. It was nothing overt, just a hint of sullenness lurking around the edges of things. I chalked it up to the long winter and the absence of alcohol. At previous meetings, an attractive selection of beer and wine had always been set out on a side table for all to enjoy post-meeting. At Christmastime, there had been eggnog. Today, the side table was bare. I could feel the board members’ pain.

Board Chair Nancy Nelson called the meeting to order. Director of Finance Jen Carlson delivered a short report on the month’s financials.

“February kind of hurt us,” commented Mattson. She went on to say that they would see a boost in revenue when Visit Duluth paid Spirit Mountain their half of the money for Spirit Mountain’s winter advertising campaign. “They have an outstanding bill with us of about $42,000.”

Well, that was interesting. Officially, Spirit Mountain’s share of the tourism tax is $225,000 a year, which it uses to repay bonds. Spirit Mountain supporters have begun lobbying the city for this amount to be increased, saying that the original intent of the tourism tax legislation entitles Spirit Mountain to more. But according to what Mattson was saying, Spirit Mountain is already getting more. Anything that Visit Duluth pays to Spirit Mountain is tourism tax money, because Visit Duluth’s budget comes from the tourism tax. So perhaps Spirit Mountain doesn’t need an increase after all.

When Carlson finished, Mattson passed around copies of Spirit Mountain’s annual budget. Unlike most governmental entities, which begin their fiscal year on January 1, Spirit Mountain’s fiscal year runs from April 30 to April 30. The board approves the budget, which then goes to the city council for a vote.
  
“The budget for this year has been a little bit challenging,” Mattson said. Payments to employees’ retirement accounts were scheduled to increase, as was the minimum wage. Furthermore, the ski hill was losing about $3,000 a year providing childcare to its customers. To build revenue, Mattson intended to eliminate the childcare perk and turn the space into a small “slopeside bar.”

The budget also had a few blank spaces and, according to Mattson, “a few errors.” She explained that she hadn’t had time to tally up all the revenue derived from group ticket sales, though she expected the number to be “somewhere between $90- and $110,000.” There were also some unresolved numbers relating to Spirit Mountain’s utility costs.

The board didn’t seem to mind. Todd Torvinen suggested they approve the budget “subject to minor corrections.”

Nancy Nelson: Do we need to make any amendments to it or just approve it?

Renee Mattson: Approve it as is and I’ll get you the changes. How about that? I mean, I…because we need to move ahead with the city. Just approve it in concept and I’ll get you those tweaks. How’s that sound?

Nelson: We don’t need any changes to the wording? Okay. There’s been a motion to approve the budget in concept. All those in favor, say Aye.

All: Aye.

I have been to a lot of board meetings, but this was the first time I had ever heard of a budget being approved “in concept.” What did that mean? Either you had a budget, with specific numbers that you could point to, or you didn’t. By voting to approve the budget “in concept,” the board seemed to be giving Mattson permission to complete the budget at some point in the future with whatever numbers she thought were necessary.

To me, this sounded highly peculiar, possibly illegal. How could the board of a state authority approve its budget without knowing what it was? To me, filling a gap of $110,000 sounded like more than a “tweak.”

When the meeting adjourned, I approached Board Chair Nelson and asked her for a copy of the budget. Before Nelson could respond, Renee Mattson jumped in and said, “You can’t have it.”

I was quite annoyed by this. “What do you mean, I can’t have it? It’s the budget.”

“It’s not finalized.”

“The board voted on it, so it’s public.”

“What the board voted on was not the final version. It’s not what will be going to the city council.”

“Well, I just want a copy of what the board voted on.”

“Well, you’re not getting it.”

“It’s a public vote at a public meeting of a public board, so the document is public property.” I was taken with a sense of déjà vu.

“File a Data Practices Act request, then!” Mattson snapped, going all tough guy on me.

Well, wasn’t that nice? I couldn’t even think where to start. In the first place, Mattson has no authority—none—to declare documents off-limits. She is the executive director of Spirit Mountain. She is not a board member. The board exists to oversee her, not the other way around. By withholding documents, Mattson was vastly overstepping her bounds.

As I began to explain this, Mattson launched into a tirade. “You know what I want you to do?” she said. “I want you to get your facts straight! ‘The Paradox of Tourism’! Tourism generates millions of dollars for this community! You as a cab driver probably owe your job to tourism!”

Apparently, Renee had slipped off the deep end. Nothing she said had anything to do with the situation at hand. Get my facts straight? I wanted to get my facts straight. That was why I wanted to see the budget. My profession was irrelevant—though it was nice to know that Renee read my blog.

And what, you might ask, was the board doing all this time? Some had risen from their seats and begun to mill about the room, but Board Chair Nelson and Board Member Will Munger stood on either side of Renee Mattson and listened carefully as she barked at me. Munger and Nelson are noted progressives and activists in the community. One might think they would stand up for the right of a citizen to inspect a public document, but alas, one would be wrong. As Mattson angrily wrapped up her lecture, Nelson and Munger said nothing at all, and silently turned away.

So why doesn’t Spirit Mountain want me to see their budget?

Anyone?