INSIDE

Bingo poses fire budget uncertainty

By Meg Olson

The fluctuating finances of Point Roberts Volunteer Fireman’s Bingo won’t make it easy for fire district commissioners to plan for the future.
“It’s unmappable,” Bingo board president Jim Madden told fire commissioners at their August 11 meeting. The board had invited Madden to try to get a feel for what kind of grant funds they could expect to receive from the bingo operation, but also to gauge if bingo would still be active if and when the fire district was able to renovate or replace the Benson Road fire station. “We can’t make plans without you guys,” said fire commissioner David Gellatly.”

“It would be like looking into a crystal ball,” Madden said. “In the last four years a lot of bingos have closed. We’ve been one of the few to stay open.” Madden said that after years of substantial profits that bingo had funneled into buying equipment for the fire department, bingo posted a loss in 2001. The loss could have put the operation’s license at risk, charitable bingo operations being prohibited by state law from operating at a loss. Luckily the following year bingo made $24,000, more than balancing out the 2001 loss. Then came another year in the red, with bingo losing $6,000 in 2003. “This year we are in the process of making a profit,” Madden reported. “I don’t really have any one reason for it. Changes in the exchange rate, border issues, the price of milk at the market can make a difference too.”

Madden said they were holding just over $50,000 in funds. “We’re holding onto that money and generally between the firefighters and the bingo board we try and get an idea of what they want to see,” he said. “Previous to this four-year trend we had been making quite a profit and we had hoped to be able to replace an engine apparatus.”

Gellatly asked the bingo operation to provide the board with information about how much they paid in rent and utilities every year. Bingo pays the fire district approximately $10,000 a year for rent on the bingo hall in the Benson Road fire station and picks up the entire utility bill for the station. “That’s an expense you’re paying on our behalf and if you go we need to absorb it,” Gellatly pointed out.