VOLGA – The Volga City Council agreed last month to annex Meadow Creek Golf Course into the Volga city limits. The move adds the facility to the City of Volga’s tax rolls as the city gives the nonprofit course a three-year financial boost. 

The 106-acre course (excluding the privately-owned driving range) will be subject to municipal sales tax. The resolution of annexation was approved by a 6-0 vote of the Volga City Council Dec. 16, followed by a 4-2 vote to approve the financial assistance agreement with the course.

Meadow Creek Golf Course requested funding assistance due to needing some updates for the course but not being able to afford them. 

According to the official minutes of the Dec. 16 City of Volga meeting: “The agreement states that the City of Volga will make an annual payment of $27,232.70 to MCGC for a term of three years. While the funding in 2020 may be used for repairs and other golf course-related expenses, the contribution in subsequent years would be made directly to BankStar Financial to cover the annual mortgage payment.”

The $27,232.70 is equal to the course’s land payment every year, Volga City Administrator Jameson Berreth said. 

“The golf course reached out to the city – oh, I don’t know, maybe three months ago – and expressed interest in requesting funding from the city and from the city’s standpoint, we are not open to financing something like a golf course unless it’s in city limits. Sure, there is a business side to it, and it only makes sense that we need to be able to use taxpayer dollars to support something that is paying taxes,” Berreth said.

Berreth said that the golf course is in need of some repairs, membership is down, there are some ensuing financial struggles to the point of where the Meadow Creek Golf Course board members wanted to request financial funding from the city to “get back on their feet.” 

This year, the annual payment will be used for whatever the golf course needs to address repairs and updates. The years following the annual payment will exclusively be for the land payment.

“I think that there’s some people in the community who might be concerned about that – we are giving $27,000 in change to them each year – or at least for the next few years, as long as it goes well, what do we get in return? That is a big chunk of change,” Berreth said. “So, the sales tax – which would be the 2% local sales tax – would be added onto any of their sales, memberships, food and whatnot. And that if it was from the last full year (2018) and added a 2% sales tax on that, it would have been about $7,000. … In the long run, we hope to make that investment back.”

Meadow Creek Golf Course is aiming to make some changes this year. There will now be two managers running the course – one for the course itself and the other for the clubhouse. The course will also look into how they can best bring in customers into the bar and grill, whether that be through advertisement changes or updates to the building itself.

“We had a couple councilmen concerned. They would rather see that (funding) in 2020 also going to the land payment rather than anything that could be mixed up within the business because we don’t want to be seen like that. We’ve got businesses in town that have made great investments to their own operations … we don’t want to be seen that we’re picking up the loss for business,” Berreth said.

“We’re able to finance golf courses because it’s a nonprofit, and it goes toward the promotion of the city. So a lot of cities are able to do this, some take over ownership entirely – that was something we had considered and was on the table at one point … but I think most of the council felt that we would rather help them for a couple years and get them back on their feet and not have the responsibility of owning a golf course,” Berreth said.

Berreth also said that as a part of the agreement, the city will have two appointed representatives on the Meadow Creek board of directors to make sure that the city’s money is being spent appropriately.

For more information, visit https://www.volgacity.com/DocumentCenter/View/1600/121619-minutes.

Contact Matthew Rhodes at mrhodes@brookingsregister.com.