Port budget hit by lack of tenants

With a national recession drying up lines of credit, businesses that were filling up the Port of Whitman County’s commercial properties are going away. That flight means the port will have to tap tax levy proceeds to balance its 2010 budget.

The 2010 bottom line of $2,960,600 is a four percent drop from this year’s $3,092,500 budget.

Operating receipts are budgeted for $899,000, while operating expenses total $1,030,000.

Only once this millennium, in 2001, has the port’s operating revenue failed to cover expenses.

“I’m fairly confident this is a temporary situation,” said newly re-elected Port Commissioner Bob Gronholz.

Joe Poire, executive director, said the agency will likely close that gap as banks free up credit lines and business development picks up throughout the year.

“It’s the nature of where the economy is right now,” he said.

The $130,000 gap is attributable to vacancies in port buildings – primarily the ISR Building in the Pullman Industrial Park.

The ISR building was constructed through a series of state grants for Isothermal Systems Research, a company that later vacated the building after merging into another company, Spraycool.

Most of the building is now being used by companies associated with Don Tilton, former director of ISR and board member of Spraycool.

Tilton is developing a flavored water company in the building and is spearheading the Green IT Alliance, a company researching clean technologies for information companies.

Ecowell, the beverage company, is providing landscaping services at the site in exchange for lease payments.

The port is still paying off construction, and a later expansion, of the ISR building. In 2010, the port will pay off the $600,000 it owes the state Community Economic Revitalization Board for a construction loan. Another $123,000 will be used to pay off construction bonds.

A one percent increase in the port’s levy, along with taxes from new construction, pushed the port’s 2010 tax revenue to $1,040,000, up from this year’s tax take of $1,010,000.

To counter the falling revenue, the port has frozen employee wages and will not up its contribution to employee benefits.

Commissioner John Love added the port will not be able to provide community grants, as it has sometimes done in the past, and some of the agency’s efforts as the county’s economic development arm will be limited.

The port has set aside $901,600 for expansion of its fiber optic network and to bring water and sewer lines to the new industrial park in Pullman northwest of the existing park.

Commissioners have dedicated $590,000 to be reserved for funding shortages or catastrophic emergencies.

A draft proposal of the port’s 2010 budget is available for public review at the Colfax library. The agency will accept comments on its budget through the Nov. 16 hearing.