The Woods County Economic Development Committee (WCEDC) spent the initial part of their meeting going over their financial report as WCEDC Director Sonja Williams noted some discrepancies and wanted to make them known to the committee. The committee had enough for a quorum for their quarterly meeting on June 13. Chairman Daren Slater presided over the meeting. Other members present were Kyle Murrow, Sandie Olson, Steve Lohmann and newly appointed Matt Tucker. Alan Poe was absent.

Director Williams first discussed the financial report, with the rest of the committee discussing a few points of the reports with them. Williams pointed out the profit and loss page that shows financials over fiscal year 2016-2017. The report showed that WCEDC failed to expend for insurance that’s to be paid to the Woods County Industrial Development Authority (WCIDA) in the amount of $1,500. Because of that, WCEDC will pay a total of $3,000 this year, but Williams assured the group that was the reason for the discrepancy and not an increase in insurance.

Because of that, though, WCEDC will pay more than they projected for insurance in their budget proposal for the fiscal year of 2016-2017. Originally, they budgeted to spend $2,000 but it actually will be $3,000 to pay off the insurance for both fiscal years, 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.

Despite that, Williams made another important note on the budget comparison page for administrative income. Originally, she didn’t project WCEDC receiving any money there because they didn’t have an incubator client in Waynoka.

WCIDA, the Waynoka Industrial Authority and Northwest Technology Center wrote and received a grant to put in a facility at Waynoka to be used as a business incubator. The Waynoka Industrial Authority owns the land, WCIDA owns the building and Northwest Technology Center provides the incubator portion.

“We have a tenant in there that just moved in this month, so we will be receiving some additional administrative income via the rents in the Waynoka incubator,” stated Williams. “We could potentially receive more than we had budgeted, which is a good thing.”

Williams moved on to discuss the Avard rail project, which she stated was busy as they have a company that is utilizing it to offload pipes for a gas pipeline. They had offloaded three cars already in that day. Williams said that this was beneficial to the Avard community, giving them extra business.

The downtown revitalization project is ongoing and Williams said that they are working on next steps for development of infrastructure. She is currently soliciting grant applications for funding to help offset costs to take them to the next step in the development process, but no word on grants yet.

The Woods County website is still undergoing construction, and Williams says that they are currently using their Facebook and Twitter accounts to send out information. Williams stated that once the website is running and they have their brand ready, they will look toward creating the tourism and business brochures, but it’s on hold right now.

Williams also talked about business recruitment and displaced workers’ assistance. She said that she was able to send out leads and get jobs for some of the displaced workers from the oilfield companies, but business recruitment is ongoing.