By Natalie M. Zeigler
City Manager
Every year when the City of Hartsville develops a new budget, we find that the funding from accommodations taxes and hospitality taxes can be a little confusing for those following along with the uses of tax money. These funds have many different recipients: projects and programs which make Hartsville an attractive, lively community for visitors and residents alike. As such, I think these funds are well worth understanding.
Both taxes are collected for specific purpose of tourism and promoting the places in which they are collected. They differ from budget items like the City’s General Fund, paying for local government operations such as public safety or parks and leisure, from the proprietary funds which go to water, sewer and sanitation, and from state funding for local projects like roads and bridges.
Accommodations tax is collected by the state and the City of Hartsville on hotel room rentals – 2 percent by the state and 3 percent by the City. In the 2012 fiscal year, the City disbursed nearly $55,000 of state accommodations tax funds from the money collected – another part of the funds collected is allocated to City operations – as well as about $19,000 out of all locally-collected accommodations tax funds. City Council approves specific amounts for applying agencies and purposes, most recently at their June 11 meeting.
These funds support events drawing people to Hartsville like the Southeastern Baseball Classic, Renofest and Jazz! Carolina, and some of the organizations giving Hartsville recreational and cultural opportunities, like the YMCA of the Upper Pee Dee, Black Creek Arts Council and the Butler Heritage Foundation. Guidelines for the funds also set aside some money specifically for local advertising and tourism publicity. In Hartsville, this takes the form of Darlington County Tourism, the organization promoting our attractions, from arts and entertainment to dining, events and more.
The City’s local hospitality tax is a 2-percent tax on prepared food and beverages. The City disbursed more than $30,000 of these funds in the 2012 fiscal year, apart from those funds collected which go to pay City recreation bonds. As with the accommodations tax, the hospitality tax supports signature Hartsville events like Renofest or the Thursdays on College concert series drawing out downtown crowds since last fall, and other projects as well. The Piratesville Splash Pad provides an excellent example of what this funding can do. The local hospitality taxes provided the majority of funding for it, giving Byerly Park a new recreational offering now generating a wellspring of excitement from in-town and out-of-town parents.
Projects like the splash pad give us another attraction for our city’s visitors. By providing a mechanism to make this a vibrant and attractive city for tourists, residents and prospective residents, these funding sources are helping us build the future of our city.
