by
Brian Mann on February 15th, 2011
Whoops. At a time when counties are pleading poverty and bracing for big local aid cuts — along with possible property tax caps — Warren County just discovered a pool of cash worth more than $900,000 dollars.
This from the Glens Falls Post Star:
The fund balance has been growing over the years, but William Kenny, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors Occupancy Tax Coordination Committee, said neither he nor other members of the committee were aware of it until last week.
…
Kenny said he was surprised to learn of the accumulated money, and the question now was what, if anything, can or should be done with it.
The money was apparently generated by an occupancy bed tax levied in Warren County. Read the full article here.
Tags: economy
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Normally there is money set aside for ILOVENY Matching Grant, but that program has been in limbo since budget crisis. Perhaps it’s related to that?
Not sure it says much for oversight.
The Bed Tax should be abolished. The law was written so that the tax money could only be used for tourism promotion, in other words it is a make-work program for the tourism department and a slush fund for Supervisors to use to gain political favor.
Don’t we all wish we’d been clever enough to set aside something untouched.
The PostStar article makes it sound like they just “found” the money. Committee meeting minutes make it sound more like they were just discussing the possible use and legal requirments of having a Reserve Fund.
See Feb 10:
http://www.co.warren.ny.us/gov/comm/occupancy_tax_coordination/
“Bed-tax” is such a archaic term. We should really call it a “Resort Fee” or “Destination Tariff”.
If they have a thing called the “Occupancy Tax Coordination Committee” that (according to the website) meets about 10 times each year they should have maybe been aware of the fund? This is a weird story. This is a weird committee.
“We should really call it a “Resort Fee” or “Destination Tariff”.” Or maybe you can call it unnecessary?