Athens City Council is discussing a possible solution to a misappropriation of funds received from lodging taxes.
Visitors who stay at hotels and motels in Athens have to pay a 6 percent tax, which is split evenly between Athens County and the city of Athens. The city then has to meet certain requirements for how the money is spent.
Ohio law requires that at least 50 percent of funds collected from the tax be allocated to the city’s tourism fund, said Councilwoman Chris Knisely, D-at large.
But the city chooses to distribute 70 percent of the revenue to tourism funds, with the remaining 30 percent spent on the general fund. Still, how the funds are currently dispersed is complex.
In order to reallocate the funds from the 50-50 split to the 70-30 split, the city must shuffle 20 percent from the general fund over to the tourism fund, which requires paperwork and time, said Athens Deputy Auditor Ray Hazlett.
“It’s not necessarily complicated but it’s a cumbersome way to do business,” Hazlett said. “It doesn’t make sense to transfer back and forth when you can just put the right amount in each fund; it needs to be made as simple as possible.”
City officials are hoping to make things easier for themselves by reorganizing the way funds from the 3 percent tax are appropriated to the city.
Though important, fixing the way these funds are first appropriated is more of a concern for the auditor’s office than the two entities receiving the money.
“The only real beneficiary is the auditor’s office because we wouldn’t have to shuffle records around so much,” Hazlett said.
But the wait may not be as troublesome for others, as Hazlett suggests.
“This is more about the city (and) about which funds they hold where,” Director of the Athens County Economic Development Council Todd Shelton said. “We will not and have not been affected by this, and we have never missed a payment.”
There are some challenges with how the city disperses the funds, but it is more of an accounting problem, said Paige Alost, executive director of the Athens County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“The problem is not on our end. It’s just been on the flow of money and how it’s dispersed by the city,” she said. “It doesn’t affect us at all.”
But the tax is important to the city’s economy because it allows funding to both the Athens County Convention and Visitors Bureau and Economic Development Council, which both promote tourism in Athens.
“When people spend their money here, it’s a big boost to our economy,” Alost said. “It’s the best way possible to bring in additional dollars to the county.”
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