CNS records first-ever profit

For the first time since it was launched on June 27, 2001, CNS, the city-owned cable and Internet service, booked a profit in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009, the city’s preliminary audit report shows.
Auditor Tom Carmichael of the auditing firm Bowen, Phillips, Carmichael, Davis & Sims of Tifton presented a draft or the audit report to the city council and council finance committee Monday.
The audit indicates that CNS revenues grew by $756,000 over the prior year while, at the same time, expenditures grew by only $171,000. CNS had total revenues of $3,176,000 and total expenditures of $2,855,000, which resulted in CNS’s first operating profit of $321,000.
“That’s the first time we’ve seen positive numbers in CNS,” Mayor Richard VanLandingham said.
“Certainly as long as we’ve been involved with the audit,” Auditor Carmichael noted.
At July 1, 2008, the CNS net deficit stood at $5,011,000, but the profit realized in FY2009 cut that total deficit to $4,690,000.
“We still have a long way to go,” the mayor added.
CNS, which recently began offering telephone service, currently has 2,734 cable subscribers, 1,244 Internet subscribers, and 602 telephone subscribers for a total of 4,580 subscribers.