07/28/1975 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Art Fairchild, chairman of the Room Tax Allocation Commi ttee, said the mai:; problem confronted by the Commi ttee in allocating funds was lack of clearly defini L ve guidelines to determine ,::iigibility. He said many of those appl',..-; for funds e haggle over whether they are eligible to the point that it becomes ~ political issue _ if the Committee rejects applications.on the basis of ineligibi!.fty then applicants take their case to the Council. Mayor Anderson thought Councj~man Murray's suggestion for an;lual a.~ocations based on a given amount of fur.is realized C' Ulticipated was the be~'- wa!-' of handling room tax monies. Applications could then be given priority ratings and those that were questionable or "borderline" would probably be eliminated. He favored budget- ing a given amount with no contingency allocations at all to avoid the impression of an "ever flowing" fund where monel; was always available. Mr. Fairchild noted the number of applications now on file for allocations of $125,000. He wondered what would happen when news items identified certain programs which were receiving money. Other similar programs would then apply, ~e said. Councilman Keller assumed there would be some sort of reserve fund for new programs or those applying for addit~onal funds. The Mayor suggested a budget based On anticipated revenues or realized revenues, then the Room Tax Committee would cons~der all applications at one time and allocate the money according to eligibil~ Hr. Keller was under the impression all applications were referred to the attorn~~ s office for verifica- tion, but Assistant Manager said only those considered questionable were referred by staff. Councilman Keller expressed concern about an annual allocation, that it might shut out some new programs, or priorities could change. Mayor Anderson replied that the social services groups were handled on an annual basis and there seemed to be no reason these cultural, tourist oriented activities couldn't be handled the same way. Councilman Williams said the social services involved continual year-round funding whereas a substantial number of the activities funded by the room tax were e never intended to be continuing operations. He strongly supported the priorities concept. Jean VanBuskirk, 333 Riverview Drive, Junction City, noted the diffiCUlty in obtain- ing funds on a once-a-year allocation basis when getting those. funds was contingent upon rece~t of funds from other sources. She said she was ~rking with a bicen- tennial theatre group which was trying to get funds from the Oregon Arts Commission and it would be difficult to get together all the money they needed at one time. , Dain Connor, manager of the New Oregon Motel and speaking for the Motel Association, wanted to know if the room tax funds were going to be put into the general fund or if they would still be allocated only to cultural, convention, or tourist related activities. Also, he felt the motel industry did not have enough representation on the Roow Tax Committee, that there should be one more person from the industry on that body. Mayor Anderson ndted that there were only five members on the Room Tax Committee, that there were five distinct groups to be represented. His ap- pointments, he said, were made with the idea of .maintaining a balance and at the same time representing the hotel/motel industry. He added that placing any of the revenues from room tax funds into the general fund would require a charter amendment since those funds were earmarked for cultural, convention, tourist related activities by charter amendment. Assistant Manager said the idea that room tax funds would be placed in the general fund probably originated from discussion during the budget process when the ci t Y was faced wi th having to cut services. He said there was about a 5% layoff of employes, however none of the room tax funds were used in the budget process, the Council is continuing to follow the charter provision. Councilman Haws asked whether a room tax allocation budget would be submitted to the Council and whether there could be a reserve fund. He also wondered what would e happen to E~nds that were not allocated under that procedure. The Mayor said any budget prepaz cd would be submi tted to the Counci 1, the main point would be that there would be a certain amount of money to be allocated and applications would be given priority for that amount of money. Any funds not allocated would be placed into a general account drawing interest for the city. The question of whether the budget would be prepared on a cash or accrual basis llIOuld have to be decided. , 4-23 7/28/75 - 5