MCC Fitness Club Runs $200,000 Annual Deficit

With McHenry County College considering going into the Health and Fitness Club business is a much bigger way, I thought people might be interested in how much the current (once enlarged) Fitness Center is subsidized by the taxpayers.

Look at the numbers below and you will see that in three out of the last four years, the Center has run over a $200,000 deficit.

You can see the numbers below:

The annual income for the fitness facility at McHenry County College is less than $30,000.

The annual income for the fitness facility at McHenry County College is less than $30,000.

There does not seem to be a charge for the cost of that part of the MCC complex with the exception of utilities.


Comments

MCC Fitness Club Runs $200,000 Annual Deficit — 9 Comments

  1. Outrageous that the MCC Administration could allow taxpayers to subsidize this activity that has nothing to do with education.

    Hey, neighbor, you and I are paying for this frolic!!

  2. Excellent work, Cal. Thank you once again for digging up the relevant facts and presenting them to the public.

    It will be interesting to see if MCC takes explicit account of this information in the next installment of their inappropriately named “feasibility study”, which, I believe, is due in just a few weeks.

    In a real feasibility study, the historical information in this article would be included and evidence presented to demonstrate exactly how the school is supposed to get from $30,000 in annual revenue to — literally — millions.

    This has not been the case in the first two installments.

    I doubt it will be the case in this third, costly, unnecessary, taxpayer-funded puff piece masquerading as an independent analysis.

  3. I am not sure I get where this is a problem.

    A college which has an athletic department and multiple sports teams has a fitness center. Athletes can use the facility to lift weights and workout, students can take fitness classes learning how to use the machines as well as proper nutrition for optimum health, and they earn credit for successfully passing the classes.

    Students pay tuition and the college is subsidized by taxes like any community college or junior college.

    Are we auditing the English Department for running a deficit? How about the Foreign Language Department? Mathematics?

    God forbid MCC should decide to expand its Science or I.T. Departments.

  4. I feel there is a very big difference between the athletic department and the science department John.

    This is not Northwestern, or DePaul, or the University of Chicago. We are not trying to build an athletics program. We are trying to build young citizens of McHenry County, and older ones too, to be able to either enter the work force or go on to a four year university.

    Moreover, if someone wants to learn how to work out there are numerous facilities in and around McHenry County that will do just that. These facilities (Shameless plug for Snap Fitness in Fox River Grove) will train you on not only how to work out, but also provide nutritional information.

    But then again, if anyone really wants to understand nutrition and dieting for athletes and those of us who have packed on the weight – you could always go to http://forum.bodybuilding.com/ Man – woman – teen – in shape – out of shape – its all there.

    This is a problem in my opinion. When we have all sorts of problems with many facets of our local government, now is not the time to be doing something like this.

    Respectfully,
    Andrew Gasser

    PS I think you would see enormous support to improve the science and technology departments. In fact, for those of us who attended the last MCC meeting, the college is doing just that.

  5. NOW we are talking true transparency to establish accountability based on responsibility.

    If we do not establish the rules and basic financial balance sheets for our services provided, we will generically clump expenses as “for the good of our children and citizens”.

    The private sector has to be accountable every day.

    If not, out of business.

    Government needs to follow IF they are getting involved with buying golf courses, building health clubs, providing child care or any other free enterprise goods and services.

    I am Ok if money is redeployed to a “loss leader” service if the people accountable to manage the resources feel it is best interest of the whole.

    But this option needs to be up front and a plan to fix should be done quickly.

    I am seeing too many private sector business operations going out of business or shrinking of jobs and government thinking they can do more efficient.

    I would really like to see the plan numbers that shows they can really do it.

    All expenses and income to finance have not been true apple to apple comparisons when decisions to take on potential out of scope responsibilities by government.

  6. Mr. O’Neill makes a useful point. It is not unreasonable that MCC should have some sort of fitness facility.

    But the current administration hired a firm that manages fitness centers and that wants to manage any fitness center the college builds to advise the college on whether or not if should have — a bigger fitness center!

    No prizes for guessing the answer the consultant gave.

    The consultant asserted with zero evidence that if the College builds a huge new facility that it will make millions in revenue. Millions! Yet the consultant never mentioned how the current fitness facility was performing financially.

  7. The expanded health club is a luxury good with only tangential relationship to the training and education needs of the surrounding community.

    You can make an argument that publicly-subsidized higher education is needed to strengthen the local economy, and you can use that argument as moral justification for taxing (i.e. using the threat of force to take money from) the citizens of McHenry County.

    Good luck making that argument with a straight face about a luxury gym.

  8. Who’s minding that store? Look at that red ink!

    Look at the year-to-year growth in FT Prof/Tech Staff, but no administrator.

    And the medical.

    Didn’t anyone notice the revenues dropping???

    Great job, Cal.

  9. Steve Willson – This is actually an incomplete act of journalism.

    All Cal did was file a FOIA for the fitness budget, but failed to research and explain each of the columns. For all we know this could be the fitness faculty members and the FITNESS EDUCATION program.

    This might not reflect the actual fitness center.

    My thought is this spreadsheet represents both the education classes and the actual fitness center.

    Like I mentioned Cal’s article doesn’t break this budget down.

    All he obtained was a spreadsheet with numbers whose values/purpose are not defined.

    Very incomplete.

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