Taking the plunge: Ruidoso's water park out-performs revenue projections

Ruidoso officials originally estimated the village's new  water park at Grindstone Reservoir would generate $171,860 for the season, but the inflatable attraction pulled in $193,707 by Aug. 11.

Three weeks are left in the season, with a total for the season of $234,840 projected, based on the number of remaining days and Labor Day weekend, said Ruidoso Parks and Recreation Director Rodney Griego.

Figuring in the $200,000 contributed to the project from a one-time payment of lodgers tax dollars, then deducting the capital cost of $230,000 for the Wibit and other costs, the first year profit already sits at $116,707, compared to the original projection of $67,860, he told village councilors at a meeting last week.

The first year profit could hit as high as $144,840 for the 12 weeks of operation, he said.

"The last three weeks, the Wibit only will be in operation on the weekends," he said, because schools are back in session, and the majority of employees at the water park are college students.

"So for the next few weeks, we will be open Friday, Saturday ad Sunday, and then on Labor Day weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday," Griego said.

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Breaking down revenue, he said $158,000 came from Wibit tickets, parking at $30,370, with the fee for the National Forest Foundation that was tacked on by councilors earning $6,074.

Fewer boat permits were sold this year compared to last year, 235 to 242, but they generated nearly the same amount of money at $9,605. Griego pointed out that the cost of the permit was lowered this year and "and we still have the rest of calendar year for that revenue."

The Wibit did not negatively affect the municipal pool, he said. For the summer season the pool generated $67,718 last year compared to $69,173 this year. More season swimming passes also were sold, a difference of $8,439 in 2018 to $11,255 this year. The Grindstone concession to date doubled its revenue, Griego said.

Installation of the Wibit took one day and cost $230,000, including a dock, two storage units, ticket booth, anchors two portable restrooms and software for seasonal passes. 

Producing workforce

The parks and recreation department hired 22 temporary staff as lake manager, head guards, life guards, cashiers and cashier-guards.for the summer, some of whom were given incentive pay for taking a workforce development course at Eastern New Mexico University-Ruidoso.

Greigo said he learned "you can't start hiring soon enough," for those jobs and will consider next year, bringing on 15-year-old employees under state rules. The majority of those helping with parking were full-time regular village employees and he would like to look at things such as season passes as a thank you when that occurs, he said.

"The things (the summer hires) learned about customers service came out of the program at EMU-Ruidoso," Griego said. They were enrolled in a 10-week business professionalism course covering 40 hours aimed at creating Ruidoso ambassadors of customer service. Some full time employees also attended the course.

Dr. D. Ryan Carstens, president at ENMU-Ruidoso, spoke about the business professionalism course of 40 hours that aimed at teaching teamwork, communication, problem-solving, critical thinking and time and financial management.

"When village leadership started looking at the Wibit idea, we began meeting with them to  formulate a strategy to train that group to work at the site, and to look for an incentive we could use so that the training would persist," Carstens said. "We hear feedback from business owners that they don't have trained applicants or they aren't interested in training."

An ambassador of customer service training course is four hours a week for 10 weeks. At the end, growth is measured in the skills acquired.

"We intentionally wanted our workers to be ambassadors, not just working," Carstens said. "If they got a lot of questions,they could help promote the community. And a lot did ask questions."

Those were completed the course were given an incentive of an extra $2 per hour for the time worked, he said.

"I'd like to use this as a model for other businesses in town," he said.

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The worker-students were given a "fit" assessment to measure a match in interests and work environment, and a talent assessment, he said.

The next step is to look at training and certification courses that would benefit the village manager, water crew, wastewater workers and other village employees in the summer of 2020. 

Reporter Dianne Stallings can be contacted at dstallings@ruidosonews.com.