With half of the fiscal year complete, the Vicksburg Convention Center is in the black for 2015-2016.

“After lodging tax has been applied we’re in the black $29,016,” executive director Annette Kirklin said. “That’s including a lot of the unforeseen repairs that we’ve had to do.”

Those repairs have totaled $19,956 for maintenance to the air conditioner, escalator, camera repair and generator repair among others.

For the first two quarters of the fiscal year, lodging tax was up 10 percent, income was up 6.3 percent and expenditures were down 12 percent compared to last year’s numbers.

Revenue for the second quarter was down 8 percent compared to the budget making $106,469 out of the projected $115,491. But, the revenue garnered from the lodging tax was 15.2 percent higher than expected.

Expenses were also below budget by 4 percent with the center spending $221,045 of the projected second quarter budget. Concessions, liquor and catering revenue was up 22.7 percent because several events spent more on meals than was projected in the budget.

In the second quarter, attendance was at 8,969 people, and there were 31 events scheduled on 43 usage days with a total economic impact of $1.38 million.

Both attendance numbers and usage days were down in the second quarter, 23 and 13 percent respectively, compared to last year’s second quarter. The negative numbers are attributed to singular events held in 2015.

“Last year the first half of the year we had Malcolm Butler homecoming, stuff like that, one-time events,” Kirklin said.

Escalator maintenance is still plaguing the center with it continually shutting down because of a jerking motion created as it moves.  Because of the escalator’s age, replacement parts have been hard to find, and Kirklin said its time to move to plan B.

“We’re hoping the city, over the next couple years, can look at plan B because plan A—fixing it—is just not working,” Kirklin said, with estimates of a new escalator starting at $500,000.

The new roof and window replacement project is scheduled to be complete by the end of June by bid winners E. Cornell Construction.

“We are on schedule to have the awning installed by May 20, the painting finished by May 31, the roofing and flashing to be complete by June 5 and the new windows installed by June 19,” Kirklin said in her report.