'Bed tax' to boost tourism gets OK

By Karen Kane, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Copyright 2001 P.G. Publishing Co.
Article date: November 18, 2001
 

Thousands of dollars a year for tourism promotion soon will be coming into Butler County. Commissioners voted last week to enact a 3 percent "bed tax" on all hotel and motel rooms in the county.

The new tax will be levied as of Jan. 1. Commissioners also appointed a nine-person board to work on a plan for spending the money.

There was little discussion about the hotel tax last week; the matter had been deliberated several times since the state legislature passed a law last year letting all counties tax hotel and motel beds. The key condition was that the money be used to boost tourism.

Commissioners Chairman James Kennedy voted against the bed tax, saying he would have preferred to have a spending plan in place first. Commissioners Glenn Anderson and Joan Chew voted in favor. Anderson, who was among the nine appointed to the tourism promotion board, said it would be the job of the board to devise a spending plan.

By law, any revenue from the bed tax must go to the county's designated tourist promotion agency.

The Butler County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism had held the post from 1997 until last month, when commissioners decided to create a new tourist agency.

The change was sparked by the failure of the chamber to meet a state deadline to request about $12,000 in state grant money.

State tourism officials then commissioned an audit, which criticized the chamber's record-keeping but found no blatant mismanagement.

The bottom line: The state questioned whether the job of tourism promotion might be better accomplished by a separate agency.

Gary Pinkerton, the county's director of parks and recreation, said the state had urged the county to create a tourism promotion agency that would deal exclusively with tourism.

Commissioners agreed, and appointed Pinkerton as the interim director. Pinkerton worked from 1978-86 as the director of tourism for Armstrong County.

Last week, commissioners appointed the directors who will help Pinkerton establish the new agency. These directors will serve through June, working to establish bylaws, hire a staff, recruit members and collect money. In June, the membership will appoint a new board.

Besides Anderson, others appointed to the board were:

* Linda C. Snyder of Slippery Rock, owner of the Applebutter Inn in Slippery Rock Township.

* Bob Tait of Butler, state coordinator for the Northcountry Trail Association and member of the Trail Association Board of Directors.

* Rick Marnic of Cranberry, area director of sales for the Residence Inn and Hampton Inn in Cranberry and a member of the Pittsburgh Business Travel Association.

* Paul Egbert of Butler, owner of Wind & Water Boatworks and a member of the Pittsburgh Tourism and Convention Bureau.

* Obediah B. Derr of Portersville, operations manager for Moraine/McConnell's Mill State Parks and a member of the Butler Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

* Jack Cohen of Cranberry, president of Safari Sam's in Cranberry and vice president of the International Association for The Leisure & Entertainment Industry.

* Daniel Cox of Center, a member of the Butler Little Theatre and Musical Theatre Guild and a board member of the Butler Arts Council.

* Beth Ann Rush of Hampton, vice president of the Clinton-based Penn's Colony Festival.

Though the county hasn't done any calculations on its own, the chamber predicted the hotel tax would generate at least $400,000 annually.

Until Feburary, 21 counties in Pennsylvania were levying a bed tax, thanks to piecemeal state legislation granting such authority to certain counties and municipalities. For example, the state gave Allegheny County the authority to collect a bed tax in 1977.
 

In the News