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1. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   11/6/2013 7:11 AM

   Sandy Clark, CGCS said: Mel, we can agree on one thing. We do need to hold our representatives at all levels accountable. I don't want to sound elitist but the problem we face is so few people pay attention to anything! We are a very stupid voting public. People don't even know who the candidates are or what they stand for. Propositions are given cute titles and people don't study to find out what is in them. It is hard to hold people accountable when we have so many uninformed voters. Many are so stupid they shouldn't even be allowed to vote on issues involving money. They will believe a tv ad or junk they get in the mail but never study the issues. Until people wake up and pay attention, we never will hold anyone in any party accountable.

   
   
   I agree with that Sandy, we had an election yesterday, one issue, the county wanting to collect a use tax from out of state purchases, similar to a sales tax on items purchased. If one spent less than $2,000 they wouldn't have to pay. Most taxes would come from out of state auto purchases. But I digress, bottom line, there was 8 % turn out. I call voting a right and a privilege, don't know why people don't take the time to learn the issues and vote. I'm sure there will be more than 8 % complaining when county services get cut.
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
   
   
2. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   11/6/2013 8:11 AM

   Sean Hoolehan, CGCS said: As for your club, do you all have 50 employees? Clubs with less then 50 employees will not have to provide insurance. Our course does not have 50 employees, I don't know if any course in our area has 50 employees except the 3 country clubs in town. Will be interesting to see what those clubs do.
   
   Is anything changing in Mass? You've had health care there for how many years now? How has it affected your state?
   
   I don't think the world is going to end. Hopefully those in congress will work together to fix the problems with the ACA.
   
   Mel

   
   
   Mel,
   
   The City of Springfield has less than 50 employees total? Do you have any seasonal staff at the course. We are being forced to limit our seasonal people to no more than 29 hours a week next year because of the ACA. Grounds keepers who worked between 8 and 10 months 40+ hours week will now have to work no more than 29. Its really hurting some people. Of course we will have to increase our staff size to make up the lost hours.
   
   Sean, our parks department has somewhere in the neighborhood of 400-500 full time staff, the city is about 1,000 full time staff. We do have seasonal workers, (4 to 5 at our course, with three retired guys only wanting to work 4 days, 24 hours per week.) Most of the department seasonal people are working part time schedules or just during the summer. If we have a seasonal that works 1500 hours or more per year, (which is an average of 28.8 hours a week) they are put on a contract and recieve the same health benefit package we get. Their other benefits such as vacation time are pro-rated.
   
   I haven't heard how we will change our hiring practices yet, don't we as an employers now get to 2015, before mandating coverage for employees? While as I have mentioned before our city has been pretty progressive with implimenting the new law in our coverages, that might be one area they are holding back on?
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
   
   
3. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   11/6/2013 8:11 AM

   Ronald Kirkman said: Hi Mel;
   
   Romney Care (I think) is going pretty well in Massachusetts. If you don't have insurance the state will provide it for you at a price. From what I heard it depends how much money you make for the cost of health care. My middle daughter who had Stage 3 breast cancer (She's a survivor - over 5 years) has a pretty good policy from the state. The deductable leaves something to be desired but she is doing ok with it. When she worked at Fidelity they had a great company plan.
   
   Massachusetts health care has cost money - I think over a billion dollars per year but not sure of actual numbers cause I never paid much attention to it.
   
   I did the payroll through December 31, 2012 and I had to keep track of state hours and now I remember the club paid a penalty for not insuring all the staff. Would you believe we had 74 employees (mostly part timers) on this 9 hole golf course. Granted most came from the clubhouse - waiters, waitresess, cleaners, bartenders, etc. With the new clubhouse came a lot of functions along with member gatherings. I don't do payroll anymore (thank goodness) and I don't know what will happen in fiscal 2014. For myself, I am salaried at a max of 20 hours per week which is fine with me. I doubt now that there will be 50 employees at Needham Golf Club. They simply can not afford it. It is true that the younger people were on their parents health plan. And, you would need a fuul time person to handle all the details on who gets what in health care. Not an easy job.
   
   Capt. Kirk
   Retired Alien
   Needham Golf Club
   Needham, MA 02492

   
   
   Thanks Capt. I was shocked at that number, but as you mentioned they have been mostly part time, was this even before the ACA went into affect? And as part timers were most of them in a seasonal and under 30 hour per week schedules anyway? Would be courious how the ACA really affects a business like your model. I don't think most of us can say with certainty how all the rules work.
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
   
   
4. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   11/14/2013 4:11 PM

   Andy Jorgensen said: I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the fact that we all pay road taxes for the gasoline we purchase to maintain our golf courses. We purchase roughly 100,000 gallons of gasoline a year here for three golf courses and the landscape maintenance of about 3,800 homes. That roughly 100 trucks on the road a day. We pay the road taxes for our gas, yet 99.9% of all usage is done either off-road on the golf course, or on our own, privately owned and maintained roads. So the question is, why am I paying for it when I don't use it? How come there isn't an off-road equivalent for gasoline like there is for diesel?
   
   But, all the aforementioned comments make good points. I for one have a resident that powers his house with solar. Drives a Toyota Prius with an aftermarket battery installed so he can get over 100 miles per charge. He pays no road tax, but in the end has paid dearly for both his solar power system and his Prius. Just not to the government.
   
   Likewise, one of our maintenance shops is currently solar powered as well. We pay road taxes for our carts through fuel usage, yet don't use public roads. We're considering switching to electric carts next year to avoid paying this tax that we get no benefit from. Although minute, it lowers the amount in the county, state and federal coffers each year. I'm sure we're not the only ones.

   
   
   I was going to answer on this before but got side tracked.
   
   Andy, I don't know how Florida works but when I was in Indiana and setting up our fuel delivery service at a grow-in I did, we were able to not get taxed on our unleaded fuel for equipment because we were not putting any into our pick up or dump truck. They would deliver our fuel to our on-site tanks. We had a gas credit card to go fill up those vehicles. Of course we had to keep good records of our equipment fuel use in case of an audit.
   
   I also thought I have seen somewhere that if you keep good records businesses like landscapers who fill up their equipment at gas stations could deduct from their taxes or request a tax rebate check on fuel put into mowing equipment. (Although, since they are being driving around on the roads maybe they should be paying fuel taxes for those road repairs?). This might be for state and local fuel taxes, guess each state is different, and it's been over 10 years when I looked into all of this, things could have changed.
   
   Thanks
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO