The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Chamber needs funds to close deficit, attract new talent
The Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce is spending more on events like Crested Butte Bike Week and the Fourth of July than they’re bringing in. To deal with the deficit, the chamber’s events coordinator Scott Still and membership director Kristen Van Hoesen asked the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council at a meeting October 18 for more Business and Occupational License Tax (BOLT) money to balance that part of the budget and make it easier to court new money-making events.
“[The problem] is very real and we do have some vulnerability and I feel there’s a real need for more BOLT funds. We’ve outlined the need for $10,000 to $12,000 yearly to make up the operational deficit,” Still told the council.
The town renewed its BOLT ordinance in 2009, setting the fee at $100 for all businesses operating in the town, which is held for the chamber to use. To raise the money it will need, the chamber is proposing a $30 increase to the BOLT.
But before the BOLT can be increased, the council would have to pass an ordinance making it official, and that process can’t happen fast enough to raise the fee for 2012. So the chamber will have to wait.
Until then, the chamber does have money-making ventures like the Fall Festival, which brought in more than $20,000 this year but depends heavily on the weather. Had it rained for the festival, Still thinks, revenues would have been closer to $6,000.
“For the year, the labor and operational costs we’re looking at are $126,000, and we receive $116,000 in BOLT funding. So there’s a deficit there that has always been a concern,” Still said. Van Hoesen added that lucrative events also have to cover the costs of the events that don’t make the chamber any money, like the Fourth of July and Ride the Rockies, that require the chamber to put out cash for permits and fees.
Still said it’s hard to go after new events while the chamber works on a deficit, “because how are we going to pay for it?”
But the chamber’s request Tuesday would have raised the BOLT by $50, with $30 going to the chamber and the remaining $20 sent to the newly formed Economic Development Council (EDC).
“Ideas came up about how the EDC would be funded and BOLT came into play in the north end of the valley. That’s about the same time Scott and I were looking at our budget and thinking we weren’t sure how we were going to do it. BOLT was a way we thought we might be able to amend that problem,” Van Hoesen said. “When the EDC was looking at making a similar request we thought it might be best to join forces.”
Van Hoesen added that the chamber-sponsored events are getting too big to be run by volunteers and that they would need to fill a permanent, paid position to do the job. “The events are getting to the point that they’re beyond something that can be handled solely by volunteers,” she said. “We really need to hire staff to run them and run them right.”
County Commissioner Paula Swenson, who is spearheading the EDC effort, told the council the group is looking at a “target budget” of $100,000 to be divided between administration, facilities, inventory and assessment of the projects proposed to the EDC for funding, as well as the development of a county-wide website.
“The way we came up with this amount of money was we wanted to make sure we have both governments involved and the business community involved, so we wanted to make sure that it came from both avenues,” Swenson said, emphasizing that the group didn’t want the EDC to be a “pay as you play” situation in which contributors get preferential treatment.
Based on last year’s BOLT collection, the EDC would have gotten about $32,000 for its share of the increase. The chamber would have taken in another $48,000.
But town attorney Rod Landwehr told the council it wasn’t quite so easy to increase the amount of BOLT assessed on businesses. He said in the original BOLT ordinance there is a schedule for the amount of tax that is imposed on businesses of different sizes. While the tax on businesses with more than two employees could be raised by as much as $50 without a vote, the BOLT cannot be raised at all on businesses with fewer than two workers.
Landwehr also pointed out that there is a restriction on what the BOLT money can be used for, which is essentially the “marketing of town’s principal industry, which is tourism and market events that are beneficial to the town’s business community… So we’re not really at liberty to just alter it on a whim.”
Councilman Gary Keiser pointed out that the “‘benefit to the business community’s [provision of the ordinance] is pretty broad.” But councilman David O’Reilly said, “There are so many unanswered questions… I wouldn’t be comfortable with it.”
Mayor William Buck said, “I agree with David’s point that the details are somewhat elusive.”
Councilman Chris Morgan added, “In 2002, when we put the TA tax up, the plan was to merge the chambers and have the Tourism Association come up underneath it so we could accomplish exactly what you’re talking about. Now the Tourism Association is generating between $600,000 and $700,000 a year. Why don’t they take care of it?”
With BOLT funding seemingly out of the question for the EDC and delayed for the chamber, Swenson was encouraged to pursue a partnership with the Tourism Association.
