Continuing their work as the Levelland Economic Development Corporation, the group held their monthly regular meeting last week.
LEDC Director Justin Balderas broke down the monthly financial statement beginning with the sales tax collection for the month of March. The amount brought in totaled $66,028, with a year-to-date being $456,928.
“We’re doing very well as a community and with our sales tax collection within a six-month period,” said Balderas. “We are exceeding our 50 percent ratio already so that’s a good sign and if this trend continues, we will exceed our budget amount for sales tax revenues.”
The access fee and maintenance fee collected were $1275 with a year-to-date that’s $38,125 exceeding the allocated amounts.
“We’re doing really well with our rail cars into our rail park,” explained Balderas.
Another item highlighted was the interest earned during the current period which was $12,498.38. Balderas explained that the amount was incredible because the group budgeted $12,000 for the year. The year-todate actuals were $60,703 and were 405 percent over budget.
“That is the result of the interest rates going back up to normal of what we expected and it’s great to see that,” said Balderas.
In terms of the balance sheet, the group has cash at $1,003,974, investment accounts at 1.89 million and the cash for the LDC bond fund is $315,508 making the total assets $4,102,622.08. Liabilities are sitting at $418,187.90 and the fund balance is $3,413,438 with an excess over expenses item $270,996. That puts the total liabilities and fund balance at $4,102,622.08 for the EDC.
Moving to the Cash on Hand Report, the group has an unrestricted cash amount of $249,194 and a rail maintenance fund dedicated is $754,780. The pooled cash amount is $1,003,974 and the investments and CD reserves are $1,898,561. The sub total cash amount is $2,902,000 and the 2009 bond fund is at $315,508, putting the total cash at $3,218,044.
The next report discussed was the sales tax receipt for the current period which sits at $66,028.80. Balderas noted that the budgeted amount for the fiscal year is $796,000. The monthly budget or monthly allocation is set at $66,347 which is the closest month to what the group allocated this year.
For the railcar report for the month of March, Titan Transload had 141 cars and Pipeline Plastic had 83 for a total for the month at 224. Penny Newman is also a company at the rail park that utilizes the rail services, but had not had any traffic in the past six months.
Balderas explained that he reached out to the company to ask why they have not been utilizing rail services.
“It’s a direct correlation to the drought that we had,” said Balderas. “They export cotton seed and with the drought that we had there’s no cotton seed to export. They’re looking for different ways to utilize the rail and the lot.”
Having interest from different parties, the company still has had nothing come to fruition. Balderas added that the company has been trucking in their commodities from states around as that’s just proving to be the easier option since they’re not exporting such large orders.
Following the meeting, Balderas touched on multiple topics that the group is looking forward to in the future.
One of those is the EDC has partnering with South Plains College to get a truck driving school in the city of Levelland. SPC currently has a truck driving school, but the college wants to have a presence in the Levelland community.
Balderas explained that in regard to their side wanting to partner with the college it increases the capabilities for the region having another truck driving school because the demand is so high for truck drivers nowadays.
“We have partnered with them by donating land and providing a financial contribution for the match requirement,” said Balderas. “They are applying for a economic development administration grant.”
Once funds are secured, Balderas explained that they will get the concrete and that’s predominantly what’s going to go into utilizing those grant funds. The funds will be able to facilitate the school and it will also require simulators for the truck driving portion of it.
“We’re actively recruiting, and the EDC has been trying to attain this truck driving school for quite some time now,” explained Balderas. “The college is committed to reapplying for those grant funds until the project is funded, so we are hoping that it comes in the near future. Time will tell, but we’re in full support of the project itself and can’t wait to be able to announce come to here in Levelland and it’ll be there the industrial rail park.”
Selection site meetings are in store for the group as it is an advantages way to spread the word about the possibilities the EDC and Levelland can offer overall.
“During this past year we’ve been actively increasing our presence with site selectors,” said Balderas. “The way the relationship works with site selectors and economic development corporations or organizations is they act and partner to be able to communicate to a business.”
A business will hire a site selector to go out and find what they are looking for in location and need with their existing relationships or by events such as site selector meetings. From there, the selector will go to CDC’s and get the communication process going and gathering any and all information.
Additionally, Balderas is constantly working on how the EDC could better market themselves as a region.
“We bring a lot more than just our local population out here in west Texas,” said Balderas. “The south plains specifically, people are willing to drive two or at least an hour and some are willing to drive more than two hours for the right paint job. We see a lot of that here with the commuters that work out of the Permian Basin.”
With the potential to draw from that larger workforce population, trying to communicate and create a good narrative, that’s is what site selector meetings are doing.
“It may not yield a prospect from that meeting, but if we’re able to communicate all the assets we have here at the City of Levelland it might plant a seed to maybe in the future get one of those projects.”