Leaders question using bed tax for infrastructure

TALLAHASSEE — If a legislative proposal to let counties use local tourism dollars to fix roads and sewers becomes Florida law, some Palm Beach County commissioners aren’t so sure the commission would take advantage of it.

Last year, Palm Beach County’s tourism tax, a 6 percent tax levied on hotel and motel stays, generated about $50 million in revenue, said Glenn Jergensen, executive director of the county’s Tourism Development Council.

Under the law, authorized uses of that bed tax money are for promoting tourism and for building or maintaining public facilities that help tourism, such as convention centers, stadiums and museums. The money can also be used for beach improvement and beach park facilities.

In Palm Beach County, it is used to help pay for beach renourishment, facilities such as Roger Dean Stadium and the new Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and tourism-related advertising that helps sway visitors to choose Palm Beach County over other popular vacations spots such as California, Texas or Arizona, Jergensen said.

But legislation progressing in the Senate and House (SB 658,

HB 585) would allow counties to also start using the bed tax money to pay for non-tourism related projects, including roads, water and sewer systems and pedestrian walkways. This would include using the tax money to buy lands for such public projects and to design and engineer the projects.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, in the House also has from the start included the option for counties to use the tax for the improvement of estuaries, lagoons and waterway channels. Moreover, it would require any spending of bed tax money — even currently allowed uses — to be supported by an independent professional analysis showing that the long-term economic benefit of a project would exceed the expenditure.

Fine’s bill was approved Monday in the last of its three scheduled committee stops and is set for debate on the House floor as early as Wednesday.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, was amended Monday in an Appropriations subcommittee to include the estuary, lagoon and channel uses and to require an inde- pendent professional analysis showing the project would have a positive impact on tourist-related businesses.

But the Senate bill, unlike the House bill, would require that the tourist development council pay for the study. Also unlike the House bill, the Sen- ate bill would require the supporting analysis only the in the case of the types of public projects being added by the legislation; currently allowed uses would not need studies.

Brandes’ amendment also added three other conditions for using the bed tax for public projects such as roads, sewers and waterway improvements:

■ That only counties which collected at least $20 mil- lion in bed taxes in the previous year could authorize such uses.

■ That such uses would require a two-thirds vote by the county commission for approval.

■ That no more than 70 percent of the county’s tourist tax money could cover such projects.

It now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee, its last committee stop, after winning unanimous approval Wednesday in the chamber’s Appropriations Subcommit- tee on Finance and Tax.

Expanding the use of bed tax dollars could be a timely benefit for Palm Beach County, which is running out of money to maintain more than 30,000 acres of envi- ronmentally sensitive it purchased as part of preserva- tion programs approved by voters in the 1990s.

But Palm Beach County Mayor Melissa McKinlay said she’s unsure whether the commission would consider tapping the tourism tax fund.

“I don’t know how that vote would go,” she said.

Jergensen said it would be unlikely, but while today’s commissioners may object using tourism dollars to pay for new roads or upgrade sewer systems, he said that attitude may not apply to future commissions.

“Once the commission changes, the dynamics of how those monies are used can change,” he said.

Commissioner Hal Valeche said using tourism dollars to pay for the construction of the county convention center and parking garage were “justifiable” uses of the tour- ism dollars on building proj- ects. The law does already allow those types of uses.

Anything e lse “seems shifty,” Valeche said.

“I’m not sure we want to start subsidizing other gov-

Fine’s bill was approved Monday in the last of its three scheduled committee stops and is set for debate on the House floor as early as Wednesday.

ernment functions with tourist money,” Valeche said. “I don’t like the idea.”

Additionally, allowing greater access to that money could be “the beginning of the end,” for local tourism, the county’s largest economic engine, Jergensen said.

“(Tourism councils are) always saying to not open up that statue because it’s there for a purpose,” he said. “If you take away the marketing, (tourists) will go to other places.”

McKinlay concurred. “We need to be careful that we don’t do anything that would hurt that industry,” she said.

McKinlay, who is the second vice president of the Florida Association of Counties, said that while she’s hesitant to oppose legislation that supports giving local governments more say over the taxes that it levies, using the money for infrastructure projects is questionable.

Instead, she said lawmakers should consider using money from the Florida Water and Land Conservation Amendment (Amendment 1) for infrastructure projects.

“We should be looking at those tax dollars to fund these projects,” she said.

Amendment 1, added to the state Constitution by voters in 2014, channels a third of real estate documentation stamp fees — some $18 billion — to a trust fund “to acquire and restore Florida conservation and recreation lands.”

But lawmakers have used the money on other things such as state equipment, government worker salaries and insurance premiums, environmental groups have said in lawsuits that allege the state has misspent the money.

Attempts to use the money for purposes other than buying and managing conservation lands falls outside the intention of the law, said David Guest, counsel for the Florida Wildlife Federation, one of the groups that sued the state.

“The way you have to apply it is use the ‘barbershop test,’” he said. “Are you trying to acquire, restore, improve, or manage those lands? If it’s for infrastructure, you’re obviously not.”