OCEAN CITY — The numbers continue to tell quite a story concerning the recent performance of the Liquor Control Board for Worcester County (LCB) as new reports surfaced this week on money given back to other counties.
Both Somerset and Wicomico counties released their unofficial numbers this week on the amount of funds paid back to their respective counties by their liquor control boards for 2010, and local residents, licensees, and politicians were unanimously awestruck by the figures.
Worcester’s LCB has come under fire in recent weeks after eyebrows were raised and proverbial liquor licensee lynch mobs were formed when their 2010 contribution to the county, and the county’s four municipalities was a mere fraction of last year’s numbers and hundreds of thousands of dollars less than what came in just five years ago, as well as accusations of price discrimination and possible collusion.
The reported $110,000 check that the LCB wrote to Worcester County (of which, the county gets roughly $55,000, and Ocean City approximately $22,000) is significantly less than the approximated $415,000 given back in 2009 and the $777,000 from 2008.
However, more questions arose this week when Somerset and Wicomico counties released their numbers and posted larger dollar amounts than Worcester County’s take, despite gross sales that even when added together, don’t come close to the more than $14 million that Worcester County LCB made in 2008, 2009 and reportedly will reach when the audited 2010 reports are released in upcoming weeks.
“The numbers don’t lie, and they never have,” said Mayor Rick Meehan. “How can you continue to bring in more than $14 million from year to year, but see your profits go down by more than $300,000 every year since 2008? That just doesn’t seem like it’s being run like a good business operation. No other business that I know of could continue to operate under those numbers and still justify their existence.”
Somerset County’s LCB reported $1.8 million in total revenue in 2010, cutting a check to Somerset County for $79,733, less than the $110,000 to Worcester this year, but if you factor in the money dispersed to the municipalities in the respective counties, Somerset County’s take of $71,065 was 23% more than Worcester’s take of $55,000 this year.
For comparison’s sake, in 2009, Somerset’s total revenue was $1.78 million, with $91,701 going to the county, but that total was much less than Worcester’s take.
Wicomico County Director of Finance Patricia Peterson said this week that although the total revenue for the Wicomico County LCB has yet to be released, officials do know that the money being paid back to the county will be $424,000.
Last year, Wicomico’s LCB reported a little more than $7 million in sales or half of Worcester’s total sales ($14.6 million), and gave its county $476,000, which was still slightly more than the Worcester LCB gave back that year.
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