City OKs $60,000 in state accommodations tax allocations
Hartsville City Council has approved allocations totaling almost $60,000 returned to the city from the state in state accommodations tax revenue.
The state accommodations tax is the 2 percent tax the state levies on hotel and motel accommodations. The state redistributes that money to municipal and county governments to help support local tourism efforts.
The Darlington County Tourism Office will get just over $20,000 of the total of $59,948.80 that came back from the state. State law requires that at least 30 percent of the accommodations tax funding the city gets from the state go to a nonprofit agency designated by the city to promote tourism. City officials have designated the tourism office as that agency for a number of years.
The tourism office will also get an additional $10,216.72 to help cover operations. The agency is free to request additional funding above the required 30 percent, according to city Finance Director Renee Douglas.
Another $26,747.44 will go to the city’s general fund. That, too, is required under the state accommodations tax law, which calls for the first $25,000 of the total allocation from the state to go to the city general fund as well as 5 percent of the remaining balance.
Those two state requirements left the city with $22,716.72 to distribute to agencies and organizations submitting requests for funding.
Other allocations approved for the coming year by council include a total of $5,000 for the Hartsville Downtown Development Association. Of that, $3,500 will go to the RenoFest Bluegrass Music Festival; $1,000 goes to the Jazz! Carolina jazz festival; and $500 goes to the fall bluegrass music festival.
The Butler Heritage Foundation, the S.C. Junior Golf Foundation and the Southeastern Baseball Classic will each receive $2,000. The S.C. African American Heritage Foundation, the Hartsville Family YMCA and the Black Creek Arts Council will each receive $500.
The city received requests totaling just over $91,000 for the coming year.
The funding does not include revenue from the city’s local accommodations tax on hotel and motel rooms. That money is going to help pay off a $5 million bond for improving parks and recreation facilities in the city and also helps provide the city’s annual funding to the chamber and HDDA, Douglas said.