CANTON — Compared with other north country counties, St. Lawrence County spends very little of its bed-tax receipts on tourism promotion.
And, unlike many other counties, St. Lawrence County doesn’t allocate a specific percentage of its bed-tax revenue toward that effort.
Instead, the St. Lawrence County Legislature provides a flat amount each year and keeps the bulk of bed tax collections for the county’s general fund. Two years ago, annual funding from the county was cut by 33 percent.
It’s a situation that County Chamber Director Brook E. Rouse wants to rectify.
“In most cases, it’s written into county law that a certain percentage of occupancy tax is dedicated to tourism,” Ms. Rouse said. “For some reason, in St. Lawrence County it’s not.”
Hotels, motels, bed and breakfast operations, AirBnB sites and other overnight lodging operations are supposed to collect an occupancy tax from their overnight guests, which is added onto sales tax. In St. Lawrence County, the amount is 3 percent, which combined with the regular 8 percent sales tax results in an 11 percent tax.
Equipped with four pages of data, Mrs. Rouse last week met with County Administrator Ruth A. Doyle, Vice Chairman Joseph R. Lightfoot, R-Ogdensburg; and legislator Chad E. Colbert, R-Potsdam.
“Increasing the number of visitors to our county is essential to economic growth,” Mrs. Rouse said. “However, recent reductions in tourism funding have made it increasingly harder to not only promote tourism, but also to develop tourism businesses and sustainable destination strategies for communities.”
Mr. Lightfoot said the county wants to assist the chamber, but is limited by its own financial woes.
“We definitely want to do something to help them out, but to what extent I don’t know,” he said Wednesday. “We agreed we’d do our very best to see if anything is possible.”
Based on Mrs. Rouse’s findings, five other counties earmark almost all of their bed tax revenue to their tourism agency: Jefferson County, 98 percent; Franklin County, 95 percent; Oswego, 98 percent; Clinton, 95 percent; and Essex, 90 percent. The remainder is kept by counties as administrative fees for collecting the bed tax.
In 2016, St. Lawrence County provided 30 percent of its bed tax collections toward tourism. The county keeps the remaining 70 percent as its administrative fee.
The Jefferson County law states that 49 percent of its bed tax goes to the tourism promotion agent while 49 percent goes to the municipality where the tax originated.
Mrs. Rouse said Lewis County collected $80,604 in bed tax between December 2015 and November 2016 and provided $95,000 to tourism promotion in 2016.
“That means they draw additional funds from their general fund to invest more in tourism,” Mrs. Rouse said.
Mrs. Rouse said the county chamber is the designated tourism promotion agency that works with Empire State Development’s Tourism Department to market the county to outside visitors as a destination within the I LOVE NY brand.
“As a partner agency, contracted by the county, the St. Lawrence County Chamber is provided a flat budget annually to administer the state funding and execute a marketing plan,” Mrs. Rouse said.
Regional grants through the North Country Economic Development Council now require a cash match in order to apply.
“The more we can provide in local match, the more we can leverage grant funding opportunities,” Mrs. Rouse said. “The more human resources we have dedicated to tourism, the more we can pursue and leverage St. Lawrence County through local regional projects.”
The marketing plan duties include advertising, public relations, website, trade shows, print guides and mailing/distribution for county tourism projects.
Many, but not all counties utilize their county chamber of commerce as their tourism promotion agent. Jefferson County’s tourism promotion agency is the Thousand Islands International Tourism Council.
Ms. Rouse said the St. Lawrence County Legislature cut tourism promotion funding by 33 percent in 2016; it remained flat in this year’s budget.
The county budgeted to collect $390,000 in occupancy tax revenue in 2016, but collected $407,991, coming out $17,991 ahead.
She emphasized that tourism is real business for the county and requires investment. In 2015, the county had 1,747 direct tourism jobs, generating $46 million in income.
She said if the county agrees to increase tourism promotion funding by $41,697 in 2018, it would be an increase in taxes of 73 cents per $100,000 assessment.
Mrs. Rouse believes any increase in funding provided by the county would pay off by generating more bed tax and sales tax revenue from visiting tourists.
“The investment of our tax dollars to generate additional revenue for our county is literally cents per property owner,” she said.
BY THE NUMBERS
Occupancy Tax Allocations 2016, according to St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce
■ St. Lawrence County: $121,499 (30 percent) for tourism investment; $286,501, administrative fees
■ Jefferson County: $1,078,000 (98 percent) for tourism investment; $22,000, administrative fees
■ Oswego County: $471,000 (98 percent) for tourism investment; $2,000 for administrative fees
■ Franklin: $344,000 (95 percent) for tourism investment; $18,000 for administrative fees
■ Essex: $1,805,000 (90 percent) for tourism investment; $95,000 administrative fees
■ Clinton: $505,000 (95 percent) for tourism investment; $25,000 administrative fees