Madison’s Board of Estimates struggled to balance marketing the city’s tourism and economic industries in the budget in their second day of deliberations Tuesday.
Representatives from the Planning and Community and Economic Development Office of the Director pushed to fund an increase in staff.
According to the representatives, the organization spends “a substantial amount of time” promoting Madison to businesses already in the city. They said more time should be spent marketing Madison to outside businesses.
“I believe that the workload in the agency demands additional staff, but that there’s more to be done than just the marketing,” Soglin said, supporting the increase.
However, some alders were reluctant to approve the increase in funding due to agency gridlock, according to Ald. Lary Palm, District 12.
In terms of promoting tourism, the Board looked at the proposed distribution numbers for the city’s room tax revenues, estimated to be about $13 million this year.
The room tax, a flat percentage applied to all hotels, motels and AirBnb rentals, typically funds the large tourism entities like Monona Terrace and the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau, with a small percentage allocated toward a general fund for city operating costs, according to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4.
However, this year Soglin proposed that a nearly doubled $4.6 million chunk be redirected into city operating costs. Alders worried about the implications this redirection had for tourism.
“We need to think seriously about the policy implications about the kind of transfers we’re talking about to the general fund [from tourism entities],” Ald. Mark Clear, District 19, said.
Soglin agreed the question on whether or not to transfer room tax funds away from the tourism entities to the General Fund was difficult, but necessary when weighed against a lack of existing state funds for city operating costs.
“We’ve got a real dilemma here because these funds that we use to facilitate city activities come from the room tax,” Soglin said. “We’re going to have some challenges here, and we hope we have a legislature that understands that.”
The Board of Estimates will meet Nov. 3 to consider amendments to the budget, which will then be taken up by Common Council at its Nov. 11 meeting.
