Finance
Economic jitters prompt Breckenridge Town Council to reconsider its financial outlook
Citing fears that an impending dry summer will further erode sales tax revenue, Breckenridge town officials requested another review of the town’s annual budget.
Following a financial report at a meeting Tuesday, March 10, council member Dick Carleton said he wanted to revisit financial projections for the remainder of the year, anticipating potentially more of an economic downturn than initially expected.
“I feel a need to be more conservative in our forecast,” Carleton said.
Carleton requested town finance staff return to a council meeting before the summer — when next year’s budgets must be approved — with five-year market projections that he believes would more accurately predict market trends. Carleton said both national and local economic trends worry him. He suggested the council consider further reducing town operational expenses and consider investing in projects that bolster sales tax revenue.
“I’m personally becoming increasingly concerned with the economy going forward nationally, as well as the resort and ski town economy locally,” Carleton said. “I’m becoming increasingly more uncomfortable with these numbers. … I feel a need to reduce expenses and create some room to invest more on the revenue side.”
Finance director Laurie Best said reports from January and February show Breckenridge’s 2026 revenue forecast remains in line with last year’s estimates.
“So far, two months in, I think we’re going to be okay, but I think there’s a lot of unknown,” Best said.
Best agreed to return to council again with five-year projections using that more recently collected data. She noted the town’s operational budget sits at around $35-36 million.
“It is important for us to talk about what’s in the operational expenses, because that’s our general fund budget, which is essentially what we run the town on.”
Carleton again suggested the council reconsider its upcoming operational budget as soon as possible. He said he feels a pressing need to ensure the town’s budget will allow it to remain competitive with other tourism and resort economies in the region. Given that this year’s historically warm winter has already hampered Colorado’s tourism industry, Carleton said the town should consider reconfiguring its upcoming budget to permit more investments in tourism and guest experiences.
“I’m feeling a great urgency to take a look at it,” Carleton said of the town’s upcoming annual budget.
“I think we need to make some investments in guest-facing capital expenditures,” he said. “We haven’t done a lot to increase the guest experience in years, and I’m afraid if we keep sitting back, we’re going to lose market share.”
When Anthony Nappa started selling hair products out of the corner of his parents’ warehouse as a teen, he never could have imagined what the side hustle would become. The business has grown from a small eBay store to a multi-million dollar beauty empire that is rapidly expanding its physical presence across Australia.
Founded as a side project in 2012 when Nappa was 19 years old, Oz Hair & Beauty posted $100 million in revenue in the past financial year and now employs more than 500 staff across the country. It has opened 30 new stores in the past three years, with the aim of expanding to 50 stores by the end of the next financial year.
Nappa, now 33, told Yahoo Finance it was a far cry from his original plan when he was a teenager. Back then, he was working part-time as a labourer while studying Commerce at university.
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“My plan was to live at home, study at uni, while I’m studying, save as much money as possible and by the time I graduate, put a down payment on a house and have a graduate job,” he said.
But when his labouring boss suddenly left the country, Nappa found himself out of a job. His parents, Elio and Venessa Nappa, owned a number of Oz Hair hairdressing salons in Sydney, so he decided to start selling the salon’s hair products on eBay.
Nappa invested $10,000 of his savings into the business and saw sales start picking up when he migrated from an eBay store to a proper website and later Shopify.
“Long story short, it really took off. I was working at the back of the warehouse, and then I had to lease the whole warehouse,” he said.
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Growing bricks and mortar presence
It was during the pandemic that business really “boomed”, Nappa said. In 2019, annual revenue sat at about $24 million, but by 2021, turnover had reached $40 million.
In 2021, Oz Hair & Beauty received backing from billionaire Brett Blundy’s BBRC and Daniel Agostinelli, CEO of Accent Group, which runs shoe retail chains like Platypus and Hype.
Nappa said part of the deal included buying his parents’ store in the QVB, which was then rejigged in 2022 into a fully fledged retail store.
“That increased sales by nearly double. So we thought we’ve got something here now,” Nappa said.
At a time when many discretionary retailers are reducing their physical footprints, Oz Hair & Beauty has taken the opposite approach.
The Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility), a program jointly managed by Climate Policy Initiative and Convergence, along with the Government of Canada, is hosting an event during London Climate Action Week focused on Scaling Climate Investments in Emerging Markets Using Blended Finance.
The event will explore opportunities and challenges in mobilizing private capital for climate action in emerging markets, including the role of catalytic capital instruments such as grants and technical assistance in scaling innovative blended climate finance solutions. Discussions will draw on practical insights from actual blended climate finance transactions and also highlight key lessons emerging from programs such as the CC Facility, which leverages these instruments to accelerate and scale such solutions. The event will bring together investors, government funders, DFIs and MDBs, philanthropies, climate finance practitioners, and ecosystem partners, and will provide an opportunity to network with key stakeholders across the blended and climate finance ecosystem over drinks.
Due to limited capacity, this is an invite-only event. If you are interested in attending, please register your interest here.
MAGNOLIA, Duplin County — The Town of Magnolia will hold a special meeting next week to swear in two town officials.
The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 26, at 5:45 p.m. at Magnolia Town Hall on East Carroll Street.
Town officials said the meeting will focus on the swearing-in of the town’s finance officer and town clerk.
According to the town’s website, the town clerk supports the mayor, town manager and Board of Commissioners by preparing meeting materials, keeping public records and helping with official town documents.
The finance officer is responsible for the town’s financial operations, including budget oversight, financial records, payroll, audits and regular reports to commissioners.
Magnolia Town Hall is located at 110 East Carroll Street.
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