PRESENTER: Presenter
Gayle Wilkinson, Assistant City Secretary
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SUBJECT: Title
Approval of the Heritage Commission recommendations for allocating grant awards from hotel occupancy tax to various heritage organizations of the City and authorizing the City Manager to execute contracts with the organizations for the purpose of disbursement and use of funding.
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DEPARTMENT: City Secretary
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COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City-Wide
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
The City Secretary’s Office made available August 1, 2021 through October 31, 2021, via the City website, the application for hotel occupancy tax (HOT) grants as well as an application guidelines and instructions. The Heritage Commission met on December 9, 2021 to review qualified applications and make recommendations to the City Council.
The total amount requested by the Heritage applicants was less than the amount available; therefore, the recommendations given were 100% funding for each Heritage applicant. As a result, there is a surplus amount of $16,012.50. The Heritage Commission recommended awarding $8,000.00 to be added to next year’s Heritage applicants and the remainder $8,012.50 to be used for the New Braunfels Visitors Convention & Visitors Bureau to promote the four Heritage applicants through digital advertising with a mini campaign.
ISSUE:
Allocations require City Council approval.
FISCAL IMPACT:
City ordinance requires that 15% of Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) previous fiscal year collections be allocated to the “enhancement of arts and cultural organizations and programs”. Customarily these proceeds are divided equally between the Arts and Heritage Commissions, who then make recommendations to City Council on the disbursement of their respective halves of the funding. This year, $329,708 was made available to the Heritage Commission based on 2021 HOT collections.
Recommendation
RECOMMENDATION:
Approval of the awards and utilization of the surplus funds as recommended by the Heritage Commission