I don't know how I got on their mailing list, but Business Journal Daily has been sending me daily headline e-mails.
And the site is pretty good at covering local business topics from the Mahoning Valley. It's a small operation and they get new, local content every day.
But today the screwed the pooch.
One of the top three headlines read "Covelli Centre Post Profit for Quarter." And that's definitely a piece of quality news because the arena recently changed names and brought new management in to turn around an operation that has never turned a profit during a fiscal quarter.
But the arena only turned an $11,087 profit after cutting $70,000 in salary and benefits, according to the article.
"Ryan said the Covelli Centre was able to make money during the second quarter because the arena chopped expenses by 23%, including placing two full-time employees on layoff."
The terminology "placing employees on layoff" sounds like it came straight from a local officials mouth, or press release. The were FIRED. Don't PR fluff it.
What did they do? Who were they? Why did the arena only profit 16 percent of the cuts?
And the arena plans to lose money in the fourth quarter?
I understand that the reporter probably wrote the article on deadline after the City Council meeting, but at least show some scepticism and wait a day to get those questions answered.
1 comment:
The real missing point about the "profit" is that it totally ignores the costs associated with the building itself because it was paid for by the taxpayer. In other words if I paid to build and run the operation I would be paying interest on the mortgage and depreciation expense on the building....this would be a million or two per year. Because it is tax payer built it is in essence a "rent free" proposition for the city. Privately owned run the way its being run it would be bankrupt....subsidized is the word I guess I'm looking for, kinda like GM.
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