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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNotes 062712 LTAC: Notes from 6/27/12 Discussion Members attending: John Austin, Joy Baisch, Bill Tennent, Debbie Wardrop via phone. Also attending: Philip Morley, Kitti deLong 10:05 am Philip announced that this meeting did not get the special meeting notice that is supposed to go out to the newspaper and so we cannot take any action formally. Philip apologized. III. There was no public comment. The May Minutes were distributed for comments for the next meeting for ratification. John read the Agenda to Debbie since the meeting documents were not distributed via email, and she would not have the meeting documents. IV. The notes from this meeting will be distributed electronically. If there are any changes to the notes from today, members should contact Kitti directly. V. Status of Lodging Tax Fund At the last meeting, the members came up with a recommendation for this year’s appropriations. At the last meeting, we made a correction to use the $11,000 that was taken by the State as well as $7,000 overage in the fund balance. But at this time, we are $19,394 under our projected annual income and so Philip’s recommendation to the BOCC is that we do not distribute that money. Discussion about the supplemental awards. Debbie stated that she felt that it was not a good business practice to agree to award that supplemental award, and then pull it back. Further discussion. Philip stated that there has only been one month where we have met our projection and every other month has been below projection. Discussion about how many tourists the Steampunk events brought in. Debbie asked if we have enough in reserves to honor that commitment. Philip said yes, we do have enough in reserves. Discussion about how the level in the LTAC reserve is determined. Joy stated that when this system was being put into place, that the reserve was not supposed to be more than one year’s annual income. Kitti stated that if the supplemental awards were not given, then the West End would be in difficulty, since their budget did not cover the very basic expenses. Kitti had asked permission to communicate their award amount to the West End people, and had been given permission by Philip. The West End then moved forward with reprinting their West End map. Debbie stated that she thought we should honor the supplemental awards and then make sure that no member can communicate the awards. Phlip stated that until you have a written contract, you should not be spending the money. Bill stated that his understanding was that the members had approved the supplemental award, but that there was still some process to go through. John stated that the BOCC has been very conservative and if the money isn’t there, then they do not spend it. Discussion. Joy felt that there is a lot of good stuff happening in the second half of the year that will help improve the picture. Discussion. John stated that when we discuss supplemental awards in the future that we make it clear that it is contingent upon revenue. Philip stated that in the RFP, we can indicate projected funding levels for the next year as compared to the current year. VI. Prep for 2012 Request for Proposals The year-end form is not very effective for this group or for the County as a whole and does not describe how effective the recipients are. Philip stated that we should stick with the form we have because it reflects the recommendations by the State but this group may choose to add questions that would help this process. John stated that we need to communicate at the County level with the State to see how they may have changed their requirements. Philip stated that the information packet at the LTAC meeting today is from the Washington Department of Tourism that is now WTA. Discussion. Joy will call George Sharp in Thurston County to ask if he has any recommendations. Philip stated that this form seemed to be designed for a different kind of recipient then we have in this County and from a view of trying to do oversight, it was not within the County’s ability to do that. Philip stated that the information distributed at this meeting is the current information available on the State’s website. John stated that, to make things more difficult, the RCW’s reference organizations that no longer exist. He asked how one follows a law that is outdated. Joy suggested that we use a standard accounting format for this documentation. Philip stated that until we get a notification from the State that information requested is changed, we need to continue to provide the information that the State requires. Debbie stated that this form could be very, very simple, and suggested that the questions to ask would be something like, “If we gave you this amount of money, what would you use the money for?” and “What is the return on that money?” Bill stated that he felt the questions seem to need a text explanation, which is what he does. Philip asked Debbie if she could make recommendations for the changes. Debbie agreed to do that and will work on that. Philip stated that the reports could go out with the contracts for next year and so we could take action in the fall. Philip will try to couple the report to the contract since we will not have time to reconvene before the RFP meeting in September. Ultimately, the recommendations of the LTAC and total appropriations will be rolled into the County process to get approved in early December for the 2013 awards. Those recommendations will not be approved until that process is complete and until after the contracts have been approved with each recipient. Contracts will be approved in January. Bill Tennent stated that a request from Bill Roney was that we add “facility” on the form where it says “organization or institution.” That language is in the State documents. Bill also stated that there was a requirement that the budget for the upcoming year be submitted. JCHS Budget is not approved until January and he states that it will not change much from the current year. Discussion. #6 in the list, Budget needs to be identified as a draft. Discussion on the value of having repeated questions in the RFP. Philip’s suggestion is that at the Staff level, we would look at redoing the reporting on prior years and instead ask, “How does this fit in with your proposed budget for the prior year?” Or maybe ask, “If you have received LTAC funding in the past, do you propose to change what you have been doing, and if so, how?” Discussion about whether prior year income and expense statements for the organization were valuable in this document. John stated that the Definitions expire in June, 2013 and other parts expired in 2009. Philip stated that it has been re- authorized. Discussion. It was determined that some of these questions are useful only when a new recipient applies for LTAC funding, in which case, we could ask, “How many years has your organization existed and if it is new, please document who your officers are and please submit your nonprofit documentation.” Debbie felt that it would be valuable to remove any redundancy in the document. Philip and John will try to attend the OPTC meeting on Thursday, September 6, 2012. Debbie Wardrop left at 11:40 am. Philip will add, “What is new? What has changed in the strategy and/or structure?” on the forms. John suggested adding, “How will you measure effectiveness?” Philip stated that because of the lag in time, he is not overly confidant that we will bounce back. Discussion about the National Park and that traffic looks good. Meeting ended at 11:55 am.