In a move that will bring the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater close to break-even financially, the Peachtree City Council approved the elimination of a full-time staffer for the facility.
The “events services coordinator” will be replaced with a part-time box office supervisor who would work form March through October.
The move will save some $25,000 to $30,000 a year, but a severance package will cost the city about $5,255 this year, cutting into the savings a bit.
This year the amphitheater budget is short by almost $36,000, according to amphitheater director Nancy Price.
Price said she is hopeful the concert series sponsorships will be up next year as well.
Price said when she came to the city in 2009 when the city still had two concerts each weekend for the concert series, the amphitheater lost $300,000. The next year that was reduced to $50,000 as the amphitheater switched to one concert each weekend.
Councilman Eric Imker said fiscal management was one of the big reasons Price was hired by the city. City Manager Jim Pennington said he and Price have been meeting almost every other week to determine exactly where to go with the amphitheater and to get costs contained.
“The economy is going down, but The Fred amphitheater is getting closer to zero, so something’s being done right,” said Mayor Don Haddix.
