Early works

Amanda Fontaine’s time in the industry has taught her how to stretch her budget dollars. Fontaine is in her third season as the superintendent at Ledges Golf Club, a municipal facility in South Hadley, Massachusetts, just north of Springfield.

The course is owned by the Town of South Hadley and International Golf Management oversees the daily operations. But it’s Fontaine’s call on how best to utilize the dollars she has at her disposal.

“I work for a management company,” she says. “They go through and set my budget, but I’m the one who spends, I’m the one who bids, I’m the one who says, ‘Let’s spend it here or there.’

“I’m the one who says who makes what hourly for pay and who works what hours. I’m given the guidelines, but I’m the one who does it all.”

Fontaine, who leads a team of 10, has the freedom to move budget dollars around if needed.
“Just in round numbers, if I have a budget for $2,000 for parts and pieces for machines over one month and I need to go over that, I can pull from different spots,” she says.

Fontaine notes advance planning is the key to saving dollars.

“I try and take opportunities to save money even if that means doing chemical early order to get rates and discounts that way,” she says. “My budget mainly goes to chemicals and fertilizer and machine maintenance. For machine maintenance and my chemicals, I buy in bulk.

“Over the winter I stock up on oil and filters and everything. We get a deal on them if we buy them in bulk or the same thing with the chemicals and fertilizer. That’s a good way to save.”

Fontaine stresses the importance of not only stretching her budget, but also directing extra dollars to where they’ll have the most impact.

“I try and save money as much as possible,” she says, “so I can direct it where it matters; getting my guys good pay or getting parts and pieces so the equipment can keep going and having the stuff in the shop for mechanic, so he can keep chugging away and he’s not sitting there with idle hands either.”

Matt Maciolek, Fontaine’s mechanic, is new to her team this season.

“He’s been working extra hard with me, trying to figure out which things get done when and how things get done and why they get done,” Fontaine says. “He’s definitely picking up on it.”

Maciolek contributes to the budget process by helping to devise a schedule for equipment maintenance that minimizes down time.

“I try and have a good rotation when it comes to equipment maintenance,” Fontaine says. “You can’t have all your stuff getting oil changes all at once. That kind of defeats the entire budget for that month.

“We finally got a good spot where we can just pull them in and do an oil change on the fly instead of having a line out the door with everything needing an oil change all at once.”

Fontaine praises Maciolek for keeping the system humming and keeping track of what equipment is due for an oil change, reel grinding and other maintenance.

“He’s good at keeping the inventory up to date,” she says.

Rick Woelfel is a Philadelphia-based writer and senior Golf Course Industry contributor.