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Port of Hoodsport ensures finances in order

The Port of Hoodsport opened 2023 by ensuring its finances were in order.

Port of Hoodsport Operations Manager Kathleen Wyatt noted Jan. 18 that Port Commissioner Lori Kincannon, during the previous month’s port meeting, had tasked Wyatt with doing “a real comparison, with real numbers, on the end-of-year, and it turns out, we did go over budget,” by $15,230, before she went into further detail about how it was offset.

“We did put in the $20,000 from January 22nd’s resolution to cover the Hoodsport trail park,” Wyatt said. “So, our ending balance became $104,707, which was actually $10,000 over my estimated end-of-year balance for 2022.”

Wyatt pointed out the Port of Hoodsport’s budgeted beginning balance for 2023 was $101,737, whereas its actual beginning balance for 2023 is now $104,707.

“So I was $3,000 off, and we have $3,000 more than I estimated,” Wyatt said.

“More is better than not enough,” Kincannon laughed. “That’s kind of perfect, because we knew we had that extra money coming in,” which was more than the $9,000 by which the Port of Hoodsport proved to be “short.”

Kincannon thanked Wyatt for doing “extra work” on a comparison that Kincannon believes will be a useful part of the annual budgeting process.

Wyatt reported the port is awaiting price quotes for the container shed, “and everything that’s going to be entailed,” and said she would move “all of those funds, plus the $40,000 that you put in the resolution for the Hoodsport trail park for this year (2023).”

Wyatt said the 2023 IRS mileage reimbursement was raised by more than 3 cents, to 65.5 cents per mile.

“The IRS raised it last year in June, from 58 cents to 62 cents,” Wyatt said.

Regarding the dock lease renewal, Wyatt reported speaking with the surveyor, who told her he’s conducted the survey.

“He just has to put it all together, in the form of a map and a report,” said Wyatt, who said that those materials would go to the Department of Natural Resources, “where he says, usually, somebody has to add something.”

With the renewal due date April 30, Wyatt assured port commissioners that the Port of Hoodsport has “plenty of time,” since the surveyor expressed his intent to complete the survey’s formatting and dispatch by the end of January.

According to Wyatt, the revenue the Port of Hoodsport was supposed to collect from property taxes was $100,786, but “we just missed that mark,” since the actual revenue was $100,504, which she asserted was still “pretty good for the time.”

The Port of Hoodsport has also collected $128,995 on the sales of its capital assets, which Wyatt specified included the logs from the Hoodsport trail park, “and the pulp.”

The total timber excise tax collected for 2022 was $15,259, whereas Wyatt had estimated only $7,000, while the investment interest was $2,764, compared to Wyatt’s estimate of $205.

The moorage collected was $825, which Kincannon deemed “good for us,” especially since Wyatt had estimated merely $800 flat, which she considered “kind of high in the estimation.”

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

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Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
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