Finley Stadium is located at 1826 Carter St. in downtown Chattanooga.Finley Stadium is expected to have a record surplus of $50,000 when the 2011-12 fiscal year ends June 30, according to Merrill Eckstein, the facility's executive director.
The surplus stood at $61,000 through the end of May, Eckstein said at today's Stadium Corp. meeting, and the surprising profit will come on the heels of the city of Chattanooga pulling the $60,000 it had contributed in each of the previous four fiscal years. Mother Nature continues to be the gift that keeps on giving, as an incredibly mild winter has been followed by a relatively mild June.
"I am very pleased, and I absolutely had no idea this would be possible," Eckstein said. "We've been very fortunate with the mild winter and that we didn't have any pipes break, and our water bill was down because we didn't have any pipes break. Also, because we had a mild winter, we had less demand on power, and we have really done a good job of conserving the power usage at the stadium."
Eckstein added that security costs were down for events this past fall compared to 2010, when there was an overstaffing of officers for University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football games.
The Stadium Corp. submitted an application to the city for funding in March, but Eckstein doubts that the Stadium Corp. will apply again. In the proposed budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year, the Stadium Corp. will receive $50,000 from the county, which is $10,000 less than the past five years.
Eckstein announced that Sgt. Jeff Clark, who is retiring from the Chattanooga Police Department on July 1, will be Finley's full-time operations director. Clark will be in charge of maintenance and security and will coordinate directly with users of the 20,668-seat facility.
For more information, read Wednesday's Times Free Press.