Starting in fiscal year 2017/2018, the Town of Guilford will change the way it manages the finances of the Guilford Lakes Golf Course in an effort to eliminate the course’s current deficit and prevent future losses on the books.

The town will move the course, currently run as an enterprise fund, into the operational budget, a decision First Selectman Joe Mazza said will add more oversight.

The course “will have closer scrutiny and their operation would then, budget wise, ...be required to come before the Board of Selectmen,” he said. “Right now as an enterprise fund, it doesn’t require that they come before the Board of Selectmen.”

The course, as it is now, was officially opened in 1999. As a municipal course, it is open to the public and anyone can play for a fee. Approximately 13,300 players used the course last year. The nine-hole course is under the direction of the Guilford Lakes Golf Course Commission. Joe Dunsmore, an original member of the commission, previously said the town has been losing anywhere from $60,000 to $70,000 on the course annually.

“The course was a profit [maker] until 2008,” Dunsmore said. “It made money, paid back the debt [incurred during its development], and then in 2008 we experienced a recession and one of the hardest things hit is discretionary income. Golf has been that way, so every year we have lost money since then.”

The commission had attempted to recoup some of the losses by increasing membership fees after town’s initial attempt to hire a management company fell though earlier this year. As of April 15, membership fees increased from $250 to $350 for a Guilford resident adult, from $600 to $670 for a resident family, from $300 to $400 for a single non-resident, and from $700 to $770 for a non-resident family rate. Senior and junior rates have been added for residents ($300) and non-residents ($350).

Despite the attempt to raise rates, the course is still operating at a loss, pushing the town to take action. At a Board of Finance (BOF) meeting on Sept. 19, board members and Mazza discussed a plan to eliminate the deficit and move the course over to the operating budget.

The BOF is proposing to move $475,000 to cover the $379,000 anticipated loss from fiscal year ‘15/’16 and an anticipated loss from ‘16/’17, according to BOF Chair Matt Hoey. The deficit needs to be eliminated before the account is moved over to the general fund. According to Hoey, the town is able to eliminate the deficit due to surpluses in the operating budget.

“The reason we can do this and move this money around is because the Police Department, the Engineering [Department], Public Works [Department], and employee benefits, all had surpluses in their accounts,” he said.

Hoey said this was the right time to make the change, which will allow the course to be funded at an appropriate level to avoid future deficits.

“It is more just cleaning up the financials, if you will, because it has been operating at a loss, not unlike a lot of other programs, and it was time to clean it up because on our books it showed a deficit in that account,” he said.