To the editor:
In the Jan 16, 2025 edition of Northern Ontario Business there was an excellent article on how a museum was saved. The Kirkland Lake Museum of Northern History, the former home of Sir Harry Oakes, was closed when the Town of Kirkland Lake cancelled their lease of the site because of a large repair bill and an annual operating cost of $260,000. A group was formed called TOPHAT (The OakesProject:Heritage Arts Tourism). This group wanted to save the site. They persuaded three local companies to donate a total of $250,000 per year for three years. The site will reopen next month. Our congratulations to TOPHAT on their success.
Here is a link to the publication and the article.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/regional-news/northeastern-ontario
This is the type of fundraising that the Heritage Park needs. Right now the funding is on the backs of taxpayers. We have put together a letter regarding the museum using our usual sources but mainly the Dec. 16/24 draft budget. The numbers are not our creation other than calculated values. Salary, benefits, deficits etc. are all available on the municipal website. This letter has been submitted to council however we have not received any confirmation that it will be included in the agenda. It is possible council will not have the chance to review it so interested taxpayers should pass this along to council members. Their email addresses are all available on the municipal website.
Comments on the 2025 Museum Budget
To council:
We have looked at the 2025 draft budgets and we have some comments and some questions regarding the museum portion.
The Nov. 16 draft had attendance set at $7,000. That exceeds last year’s paid attendance by over $2,000. In the latest draft that number has been increased to $10,000 which is now over double the 2024 admission. Admission is set by the museum board and council should be getting an explanation for this that can be shared with taxpayers.
Heating costs are projected to cost $3,000 which is only 75 per cent of what has been spent already in 2024. We would like to see an explanation of how this drop is going to be achieved. Other taxpayers might be interested in doing something similar to reduce their own heating costs. Hopefully council will ask this question at the next budget meeting.
Insurance costs have jumped from $16660 to over $22162. That increase alone, $5502, is more than the 2024 admission revenue.
In the 2024 approved budget salary was set at $66,355 and benefits at $12, 043 for a total of $78,398. Those numbers have gone to $101,668 (salary) and $19,326 (benefits). The new total is $120,994. That is an increase of $42,596. Combined with the increased insurance cost it is $48,098, over 10 times the admission revenue in 2024.
In report to council 2023.194 the total number of open hours at the museum is 314. Using that number and dividing it into the new projected salary and benefit cost, it works out to $385 for every hour the museum is open to the public. Now look at revenue. We will use the projected admission revenue number of $10,000 and it works out to $32 per hour. Using the actual 2024 number ($4489) it is about $15 per open hour.
Compare these labour costs numbers to Norwest Rec Centre. First the Norwest budgeted salary number for 2025 is $38,127 and benefits of $9,224. As well we will include the supervisor salary assigned to Norwest of $10,815.
This total becomes $58,166. Using the schedule on the municipal website the total operating hours is about 1,700. In fact it is likely higher because we have not included operating time in August or April. Dividing the projected salary and benefit costs by the operating hours we get a cost of $35 per hour or $350 less than the museum.
Since that 2025 projected salary number for Norwest has already been exceeded and is $46,623 up to the end of November. We will increase this by $3,377 to $50,000 to cover the cost of December and recalculate the cost per hour. So the new total is $70,039 divided by the same 1700 and it is $42 per hour. So you have a facility, Norwest, that has as many people, spectators and participants on a single Walleye weekend, Friday to Sunday, than the museum does in an entire season and labour cost is about $340 per hour lower.
Look at projected 2025 budget deficits which covers all costs for those two facilities. Norwest is $20,312 and the museum is $165,105. Divide those numbers by the yearly hours. Norwest works out to a $12 deficit per operating hour. The museum works out to $525.81 per operating hour. Raising the ice rental by $15/hr would eliminate that and cost each participant on the ice less than $1.
The museum would have to boost admission to $530 to do the same.
Minor hockey would have about 30 to 32 players at a game and adults generally 20 t0 22. A minor hockey practise would be about 16- 17.
The following is an excerpt from a May 17, 2023 news release available on TBNewsWatch. Segments in quotation marks are comments by the mayor.
Quote:
"What we're doing now is we're assessing those buildings, making a decision as to what buildings we are planning to work on and spend these kinds of funds on, and which ones are beyond the point of being feasible."
The estimated cost of the upgrades over about a 10-year period is $939,000.
"We were looking at approximately an average of $90,000 a year, but of course some years we would spend more than others," Kloosterhuis said.
End Quote
Report 2023.110 was presented five weeks later at the June 28/23 council meeting. It identifies a total of $1,096,000 in required repairs. After the commitment of $148,200 for some of the repairs on Oct. 10/23, there is over $900,000 remaining. It also suggests an annual requirement of 3% which totals $60,820. We will project only the annual requirement, salary, benefits and insurance over that 10 year period suggested in the news release plus the remaining ~$900,000 from Report 2023.110. There would be nine years left.
Nine-year total
Salary and benefits per year $120,994 $1,088,946
Insurance $22162 $199,458
Annual Requirement $60,820 $547,380
Remaining cost of repairs $900,000
Nine-year total $2,735,784
Projected admission revenue $10,000 $90,000
Rentals $3000 $27,000
Goods sold $3500 $31,500
Total $148,500
Shortfall $2,587,284
And we know who gets to pay that bill.
This a quote from the 2020 Museum Master Plan:
“If the museums are to survive and prosper we all need to understand status quo is not an option, accept the situation and make the best of the opportunities with the resources available. “
Prosper? Really?
Status quo has been massive amounts of taxpayer dollars being spent on a facility that has minimal paid attendance.
We agree. The statement is correct…..status quo is not an option.
Les Pawluk
Rick Angove
