 here, here, present, yes, present, here, yes, let us bow our heads for the beauty of this day and for all of your grace that surrounds us, touch us, sensitize us and let your discerning spirit be among us. Be with us as we deliberate, as we discuss and talk, let this be for the benefit of our beloved city. So today's work session is probably part one of maybe two or three, there's lots of follow-up items from our budgetary discussions and approvals and we wanted to try to arrange the topics in an order that makes some sense. So obviously dealing with some funding sources today, there's some additional funding sources that will come up as we proceed for it with additional work sessions, all in the attempts of ultimately getting to some very important discussions about capital projects, some special projects, some things that I know that you all reference as being priority items through your retreat discussions that deal with beautification and cleanliness and homelessness and lots of important topics. And so today, the importance of getting hospitality tax, data accommodations tax, and tourism development fee funding sources on the table was to also not get those out of the way, but to put them out there in case you may decide this year to look at doing things a little bit differently and if it frees up any opportunities for us as we are approaching some other big ticket items that we need to take care of as a city. So making sure the committee recommendations are addressed first, some of the standing entities that you deal with in hopes that we also can make sure there's a fair discussion. I think that's a term I've heard to get us to a place where perhaps some of these funding sources are utilized from additional things that benefit our community as well. So with that said, you know, we have traditionally, or you may or may not remember some of you, when you have a work session the same day as a council meeting, we put a caption on your council meeting agenda that if there's anything from the work session that you wanted to take up during the council meeting, there's sort of that option for you to do that because traditionally you don't vote during a work session. I know some of these items are so important and I know we have lots of people here looking for some clarity on recommendations for their entities. If you are interested in taking up a vote today, then you may want to deal with that right now. So everyone is clear that you might be doing a vote this evening. Is that the consensus to do that? What happens if we don't finish all of it? Well, hopefully we will come to a consensus this afternoon and then can vote on it tonight. If we don't come to a consensus, we'll carry it over. Second. Well, that's just an order for you all. So you all want us to do that at the beginning of the council meeting. You'll take up that amendment. I've asked the clerk to give me an amendment to put it on the agenda for tonight. In case, just like we used to do, we used to say that if something comes up, as you just said. Yes, sir. I was just concerned because we didn't have it on the agenda. So I was sort of laying that out for the public to hear that you will do that potentially tonight since we didn't have that referenced on your agenda that way. All right. With that said, we'll move forward with our hospitality tax item, which includes committee recommendations, line item agency allocations and other allocations and special projects. Miss Missy Kaufman, our budget program management and grants director, will take you through these fiscal year 2223 budget special revenue funds. Good afternoon. Thank you, Miss Wilson, Mayor and Council. It's good to be here today. As Miss Wilson mentioned, we have a number of topics that we are planning to bring back for continued discussions and trying to bring them in a way that flows for conversation and some other inputs with decision making as we proceed through remaining budget items. So today, we'll be talking specifically AHA tax and AHA tax as mentioned. The first part, so we'll do three parts for the hospitality tax. And I would like to take a moment to acknowledge we do have committee members with us today that are here today for the hospitality tax committee. We were glad that City Council decided to bring back the AHA tax committee this year after being suspended two years during the pandemic. So it's excitement that there were funds available and that we have activities and events in which to fund. So it's good to see the committee back. And thanks. Thank you for your time and being here today. We also have the line item agency allocations for consideration. Other allocations or special projects or some other items that have come up during discussions for just for discussion today if that is City Council's will or for continued discussions at a future date. We'll also discuss state accommodations tax. Again, that one has committee recommendations and then just for information and just overview is regards to the tourism development fee. So that sort of rounds out some of our special revenues. And again, this is building on some additional conversations as we proceed with other items in future budget workshops. As again mentioned, we can come back to this part in terms of what other items we would want to bring forward for City Council consideration with regards to future discussions regarding capital projects, community promotions, an ARPA update and some other items that City Council has asked for continued discussions. With regards to the hospitality tax, the budget that was approved for hospitality tax for fiscal year 2223 is 12.7 million. Of that City Council allocated three million specifically for the hospitality tax committee included in your packets and material was a recommendation from the hospitality tax committee for allocation to the groups that applied. As you may recall, we had a fewer number of applicants this year and a little bit more funding available. So there's both the committee recommendations, but then there's also recommendations for not all the funds that were allocated to possibly come back for a second round, if you will, of considerations. That's one of the items also on for City Council's consideration today. So in your packet again is the committee recommendations based on the applications that were submitted for hospitality tax for this year. The other allocations from hospitality tax includes the debt service which includes this existing debt service schedule of 2.5 million and then the transfer of the general fund. So the pending decisions from the hospitality tax funds again is the allocation for recommendations from the age tax committee. There's available 2.5 million dollars for allocation to the remaining items which includes line item agencies and some additional allocations for some other special projects or line item type request. I'm sorry that's 3.5 million. So I don't have any slides with regards to the committee allocations. I don't know if there's any questions or conversations that you have about the age tax committee request. I've got some proposed changes. How do you want to take them? I don't have a slide specifically so we can go start with the age tax committee. If you have any points of discussion there. Committee. I've got I've got three recommendations on the committee assignments. Two of them deal with the Vista Gill and the Five Points Association, two associations. Both of them had clean and safe allocations in previous years and this year the Vista Gill got left off of the 115,000 for clean and safe got left off and they were the committee recommendations were 300,000. I'm going to recommend we put that back to 415 which is what they got last year. And on the Five Points Association they asked for 690,000 but just like the Vista Gill they did not get their cleaning safe put in and that would be another hundred and last year they got 355 which included the clean and safe. They asked for 690 because of the two years that they were not able to have their biggest fundraiser which is the Five Points and their funds have been decreased in the last two years to the point where they think they're going to need some help to put on the Five Points premier event of St. Patrick's Day. They also point out the increased cost both of the bans but also the police and other things like the fencing and the Pope Port of Johns and things like that that came in. I'm recommending we move that from 300 to 500 to give them back their funds from last year plus a little bit more. And the last one that I had is the Columbia Classical Ballet. Their recommendation was 125,000. I think Ms. Lumpkin has made a persuasive argument that with the Brooklyn Mac coming into their what you call that thing, troop, corps, dance group. Anyway, Brooklyn Mac is a local person. He is going to be split between London and Columbia and he needs an assistant and they're asking for 25,000 so those are my three requests. 25,000 for the Classical Ballet, move it to 415 for the Vistigil and 500 for the Five Points. It would be 150 when you add the 25. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. Of course I agree with this but I agree with the configuration of these figures. Let me ask you this. Either one or three of these organizations, if we know what COVID did to all of us and to all of our organizations, I guess what I'm asking is what was the skin in the game? Well, the skin in the game for the Five Points Association is they weren't able to have their premiere event for two years. I remember when I first got involved in the H-Tax they were telling me that they had two years of money banked so that they could have their event even if they would have their funding even if it rained out the event. Well, we've had two years of COVID so they've used up their fund balance and I think moving them to 500 will give them some. They had it this year but they missed two. What was the bottom line for the year that you had it? You know we didn't have it for two years. What about this last year? Well, our bottom line was 300, 355,000. So the additional quarter-jonds and that sort of thing. I'm giving them the 355 plus enough to give them a little bit of boost towards the quarter-jonds and the fencing police. Do we just, does Five Points have the merchants provided an operations plan for their clean and safe? Is that something that they provide the city in the packet that they submit for H-Tax money? It would include the, how they, the budget for those activities. Not the actual work order and everything. Right. Yeah, I just wanted to, I just wanted to make sure that the four, three organizations that we, that Howard is referencing, I want to see whether or not there were some reserves and of course what I'm hearing is that there were not and that's making up the reserves that were extended. Getting them back to last year plus a little bit for, yeah, I'm fine. 50%. Last year plus 50%. They asked for 690. I mean, I don't have any problem with it. That's applicants. Committee chair is also here. We do have any questions for so I'm, if we are talking about some of these entertainment districts and kind of meeting them where they are with some of their requests, the only one that I see that there's a large discrepancy is the Divine Street Association. They asked for 100,000 and we recommended, or the committee recommended 60,000. I just think that we should be consistent across, you know, some of our H-Tax revenue generating areas. If we're going to meet ones, then we need to consider kind of looking at what some of the other entertainment districts are doing as well. Have they provided the action for the increase or new programming, new clean and safe along Divine Street? Is that something that the council can see from the applications? The application, what's on the summary, does indicate what the request is for. So yes, this is for publication. This is for promotion and marketing of their events. Okay, just for marketing. Right. Can we circle back around? I didn't realize the committee chair was here. I should have. Can I get a better understanding? I think I understand it, but a better understanding of why the Sacramento Women's Leadership Network was not funded. Okay, that group asked for money for two different events. One of the events was a dinner and we traditionally never fund dinners, galas, walks, runs because there are so many of them. So that one we wouldn't have even considered. The other one is a very small leaf, small focused group. Like most of the things you see in eight that we fund in age tax is open. Anybody can come. This is specifically for women who have or are considering running for public office. About 200 people. So it really didn't fall within what we typically fund. Thank you. I think that's one of the things we got to look at. I do think we got to really truly start thinking in terms of how we use these funds to make our place look better. It's not just about buying bands and doing this and doing that, but again, three things like that. Again, I don't know if this is the time. I think it's probably explained what it's about to be the right time for that. I also think we've got to start thinking about armors a little bit. I would be reluctant to move five more past the clean and safe number until we get a little bit more of a hard number, just saying three to five thousand more things. We're going to have about 450,000 left over for what the committee said might be a second round. Do we make a stipulation that we move this to the 355 and then let them apply for the additional funds in the second round? The stipulation where you couldn't apply for the second round if you got funded and purged. Well, again, I would have to tell you, I would prefer that we do things separate from the clean money. This is for the clean and safe and the yellow shorts down the room and else. Sometimes I wonder if it's appropriate for us to fund the fundraiser to generate funds to go to some more. That's what all of this is. Well, can we, speaking of LA, can we go back after you're done? Okay. I would say if they want to come back. Well, they did, but their application was for six months. So I wanted to go back to the ballets and ask if our chair could explain. So Ann Brody's Carolina Ballet, you all are recommending that that is met. And if I am correct, Ann Brody's Carolina Ballet is affiliated with the Columbia Music Festival Association, which is a line item. And then we have the City Ballet and the Classical Ballet, both of which we are not meeting their request. And so I'd love to learn more. First of all, we have three ballets, which is crazy, but right. We have three ballets. The Ambrodie's Ballet is a training ballet. The other two are professional ballets. CMFA is a fiscal agent of Ambrodie's Carolina Ballet. So they're not, they're two separate entities. The other two ballets, which are professional ballets, the Classical Ballet, these group is just not as active, as strong as Carolina Ballet. Yeah, performance-wise. And with Brooklyn Mack, he's not a, he hasn't accepted the permanent position. So even though you cited him, he could actually be gone if something better came along. So that's kind of an issue. Did they share where they put these shows on? Are they in the city limits or are they? Oh, they're in the city limits. Okay. Can I ask you a question? And then in terms of the, so continuing conversation about the activeness of the two ballets. So I see that City Ballet requested 250 and you all are requesting 180. How did you all come to that number? Well, after looking at their needs and hearing from their presentation, we determined that 180 was really going to meet their needs for this year. Do you remember what they were going to spend, what they are saying that this would be spent on? So I know we talked a little bit about Classical, but interested in City and Carolina. Oh, I can look it up online. All right. Their budget, 202,000, they're using, this is what they requested. They were going to spend 202,000 on advertising and 48,000 on entertainment and artists. Thank you. And they anticipated, as far as total source amount for funding $1,356,000 of that 250 request was City H Tax. No, thank you. That was helpful. Just before you leave, Mr. And we ever, if we ever, in the question, whether this is, you can spend H Tax on it or not, I just don't know the answer to that, but have we ever looked at offering any kind of training or any kind of classes and development and things like that for, for nonprofits in town and these, in these groups? I mean, and, and, and should we have an ongoing program? I mean, I've been cursed or fortunate how you want to look at it to serve on, on a gum close to every board in Columbia, I think. And, and again, don't mean this in, in as negative a way as it's going to sound, but in most of them, it's easier for them to come to the City and apply for money for H Tax than, than it is for them to raise it in the community. And, and I just wonder sometimes if we're, if we would do a better service, I'll never forget during the recession, I was on the, on the Columbia Museum of Art Board at the time and everybody, everybody got cut way, way back. And I won't call the name, but one of our musical, you know, groups got cut way back and they got very entrepreneurial, got very creative, put packages together, really worked in the community, reached outside of Columbia, up to Lake Murray and other places and sold these tickets and their attendance actually went up during the recession. And they, and, and, but the sad part was we got out of the recession and they got their city money back and they quit selling the things and the attendance went back down. So, I mean, if we ever looked at any programs or continuing type education programs, well, I can tell you that within the hospitality tax program, if a group wants to be mentored by an experienced group that has gotten funds, mentoring opportunities are offered. Now, I think it'd be great if y'all would like to create a workshop and get experts in to talk to people about not only government funding, but private funding and how to do that. But that's, I'm not aware of anything available. If the committee were to ever take a look at that. Missy's telling me we do it. We have done it. We will do it again. Okay. Together, SC also actively promotes and utilizes this, but capacity is, capacity building is a concern, I think, just in general across nonprofits, especially with fundraising and managing the of those grants and opportunities. But we do try to help provide information as we get available and also point folks. Can we look at input and maybe one of those for this physical year? It would be, you know, be something I'd be really interested in helping with. We will at least do a workshop prior to the application process because we encourage, obviously, additional funding besides just city funding. But I don't think those workshops go into the kind of detail. Probably. It's something we ought to think about because if you look across the country, leverage and we're, hey, we're having to do the same thing as we go to the federal government, we go to everywhere else. We're having to look how to leverage and most communities today are doing PPPs, which is philanthropy and public and private partnerships. And it would, I think it'd be well worth us spending some money to help people so that they can grow it because the more it grows, that means more people are eating out. That means we're getting more attractions. As we know, we get 15 million visitors here, only five million spend the night. So if they got more reason to spend the night, that means we're making more money. That means our hotels and our downtown and our restaurants are all growing. So I'd love for us to figure out and maybe we could, we could work with the committee to come up with a structure and find the right person to come and sit down and present and show opportunities. I had a discussion today with somebody of similar nature that, you know, there's, there's a lot of generous people in our community and we need to learn how to work together to access those dollars to improve our community. It can't just be government. That was a big conversation during COVID with Central Carolina Community Foundation, United Way and Together SC. And there are some opportunities, I think even some funding specifically to help do that, but we're glad to help partner as well with that type of facilitating those kind of discussions. The grant management alone is, is a, it's an effort. So it makes us easier because even though I'm sure some of our applicants would not agree that our grants are that easy to manage, but it's probably easier than some of the federal and other state grants that are available. Another question that came up is, I know you had mentioned that we don't typically fund dinners and walks, but we do have a domestic violence walk that's being allocated for. What, what is different? We're not funding the walk. If you look at the application, what they're doing is a walk. And then at the end of that, they're having a little festival at the park. So what, and we didn't fully fund what they asked for. What we're funding is after the walk where they have vendors and rides and things like that. Ms. Herbert or Reverend McDowell, did you have any? Okay. Do you? Okay. Yes, sir. Ms. Davis, why are you there? I'm just curious. Just something that stuck out to me and I know there's a reason behind it, but there were several events that got almost double and one of them's got almost 70% more than they've gotten in the past. Could you point out one just for me to, well, I mean, if I just look, if I look and it's a great event, but if you look at 2019 appropriation for Columbia International Festival was 23,000 and they went to 100, you know, what's helpful for us is to understand the backstory because I know what's going to happen. We're going to get phone calls when this is all over and saying, well, you know, what about our group? Why do all the same groups get all the money? And so understanding the background is very helpful. Well, and this one in particular, he brings in a tremendous number of people. I don't disagree with you. And in the past, we've had less money to allocate. So while he asked for much more, we had to cut him back. This year was a little extra funding and knowing how successful his program is, we went ahead and gave him additional money. We did have one committee member who has worked or participated with that event and gave us, you know, encouragement on that as well. So we were, we were looking at between 80 and 100 and we felt like this year we could afford to give them 100. I noticed the township and several others were in that case. So obviously, some of this is historical that you're bringing to the table as part of that. Trying to, since we had extra money trying to get where we think they should be. Oh, I've been there. I mean, I eat my way around the food court. I mean, I'm not going to lie about that. One of my favorite events. What event is this? What event is this? The Columbia International Festival. I probably burned through three or four rolls of tickets. But the only other question I had to is because I've been to the events every time is the Black Pages International event. Could you shed some light on that? I do think it's a very signature event in our community. It does bring a lot of out of town people here almost to be honest, the majority of people I met weren't from here. That one, well, you can see we increased them from anything we've given them in the past. I believe cancel has added to that number. I don't think the cancel add on is shows in those previous year amounts. So we did feel like we wanted to increase them. We just didn't feel like we could take them up to the 50,000. Okay, that was a problematic application because the events were small dinners. They were going to do dinners in homes with private chefs and a dinner in the tunnel that was going to be I think $75 a person and they weren't events that were going to be open to Columbia. Now then they were going to turn around and I'm not sure who mentioned this earlier but they were using the proceeds to then turn around and donate money to Harvest Hope and so it was gathering money to then turn around and donate money. Right, yeah, there are no restaurants involved. It was all private events and it was a pretty broad outreach but not really seeing that it was going to happen. If I remember correctly, we were happy to be able to give them more than we had the last three, four years. So we felt like an increase was giving them what they really needed. Yeah, because in our evaluation of the application and the interview, we felt like 40 was appropriate. They are funded fully and black persons into our city. Let me pull up their application. And I'm sure that BlackPage is appreciative for that, but I think at some point we need to make sure that those organizations that are contributing to the lifeblood of our city in terms of being a revenue generator for tourism and for folks coming in that we not cut them but we give them more. Well, and we thought we were giving them more, giving them 40 rather than 30. We ain't got to where we're giving five points 200,000 yet. Well, from a percentage perspective, the increase for the black pages is more than what we're talking about doing for five points right now. Isn't that correct? I just wanted to add that every single year you all make an allotment and then Black pages comes to city council and city council increases it. It seems like we would get to the point where you all just make the allotment so that they don't have to come back to us. And so I would recommend that to the council members that we just put it at 50 because they're going to come back. They're going to come. And that's just more time that we have to make that discussion. So I mean every year that I've watched Black pages comes back. And it's not as if Black page we don't, well not we, I wasn't on council then, but every year council approved the additional money. That's the only thing I would note. So let me ask you where Terry, am I missing? Missy, am I missing where the carry forward funds are? It's not showing in this. It's not showing in this little handout that I have that came with your agenda items. Right here on this page, 484-531, what's left over. Okay. So yeah, organization specific divine street merchants have an $8,000 carry forward, correct? And that's not really subject to the committee's allocations. Okay, wonderful. Is their allocation from prior years? Okay, completely understood. So they asked for 100 and this is all for marketing initiatives. Divine Street, I would view as a growing corridor. And I'd like to see that bump to meet in the middle at 80,000. Which one? The divine street association. So that would be my request, Mr. Mayor. $20,000. Correct, from 60 to 80, with their 8,000 carry forward on top of that 80. We'll tell you that in the activities, we didn't see a lot of change in what they were doing in Divine Street from previous. Wonderful. You know, every little bit helps putting in a litter pickup program. You know, Rosewood merchants have done a good job of that as well. So implementing something like that with the Divine Street Association, I think would be great. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, similarly, I'd like to, instead of having black pages to come back to us a second time, that we have that to $50,000. Do you want to add 10? I mean 10. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have another question. We'll be tough to catch up to Howard's tally though, right? I know, right? Howard already spent. He took 30% of them already. So Workshop Theater of South Carolina, we're jumping from 3,900 to 20,000. And then I noticed that both Trustus and Workshop didn't receive anything in 21-22. Would love to just get more insight as to what you guys are thinking there. Okay, Workshop has done a tremendous change over the years from when we hardly funded them at all because they were, to put this crudely, they seemed to be in a really downward slump. Now they've coordinated with Columbia College and they're really coming back to where they used to be. So we thought we're now funding them where we would have when they were holding. And then as far as Trustus, we gave them what they asked for and 56th and Town Theater. We, if you look back now, the 40,000 that they got previously was not when the committee was working. You'll see that traditionally the committee had given them about 15,000 a year. So 30,000 is about double what we used to get them. They're a solid program. We don't see that they're growing, you know, quadruply, but they do a nice job. Yeah, and I would just reiterate what I said earlier about, again, I think having a surplus is a good thing. We do not have to force ourselves to give all this money away. Having money left over to beautify these entertainment areas I think is critical. I think we had that discussion in one of our committee meetings here in the last month or so. And so again, I think part of what we should really be looking at is how we can start taking some of these funds and the extra funds this year and putting them into our beautification budget, especially in these entertainment districts. And you also had 25 classical ballet. Well, I was going to mention this until we, this was a specific request for an individual that we don't know is there. So I think we hold it over until we know that. Yeah, I think it was for this Ruecklin's assistant, but we were told the Ruecklin hasn't accepted the full position. That still leaves $284,000 in the account. So I would say that we hold off on the classic 25 until we verify that. I think we hold off on the additional that you mentioned five points until they can provide and they can always apply to the different. We're adding the 20 to divine 10 to black pages. And then that gives the girl the additional and five points or additional body else having this stage. And I would suggest that we hold 10% of what's left put towards a class. We may not need that much. But if we can offer workshops to increase investment in the arts and entertainment and also help some of the smaller entities learn how to navigate the system to raise more money, I think that's well money. I just think you're spot on on that. And I think one of the things that we can do in those classes is help them identify, you know, it's not necessarily the city, but the consultant that we bring in. I think where I've seen lots of board struggle is how do you find the names out? And I just think that's an absolute champion of an idea, Mr. Mayor. We're seeing more and more nonprofits and some folks reaching out, you know, as you know, there's there's hundreds of private foundations in South Carolina that fund all types of things. But it's just like, you know, when people are applying for scholarships and stuff, I don't care if it's a $200 scholarship or a two that they all add up. So, you know, what I think whatever we could do to help these organizations, we should. So, you know, I think if we're good with that, then we have a path forward with the committee recommendations. Do we have a consensus on that? The $200,000 total that we talked about. Yep. And then taking 10% of that that would leave us to $84,000. So we put $28,000 in a reserve towards a workshop. We may not need it, we may can release it, but at least we know we've put some money away. Yes, sir, we still have money on the table. Yes, sir, $260,000 plus or minus some some coins there. We're we're getting there, Howard, slow down. I know you like to spend money, but we got we got I just wanted to say, I thought you did a great job on the line item. Not yet. We haven't begun the discussion. Yes, and thanks again to the committee for their time. It was several days of long days with meetings and hearing from all the applicants. So thanks again to the committee for their work. And hopefully, as we continue to move forward and fund the different events, that we'll continue to get more hospitality money generated. I mean, our goal is really to lift those overnight guests and more people spend the night eating dinner, eating out so that we can really grow that 15 million visitors that we have. And, you know, it's it's pretty exciting what the potential we have here. And I really appreciate y'all's time. With that, we are going to the line item. So next is the line item agencies, which you have also in your packet, their amount of their request on your screen. Yeah, do you want to six? Okay, go ahead. So just out of curiosity, there's nowhere on here what the budgeted amount is. They're just requested amounts. So the budget amount is really going to depend on a couple things. City Council. So out of at once, the allocated funds for the committee and for that service and for the transfer that left you a budget of 3.5. Now out of that, though, I would say that's coming for your line item agencies. There's also some specific initiatives requested by City Council that are for still considering consideration. We're not spending it all. I'll tell you that right now. And then some other line items. So are a few other topics. So there's several questions in here. I know I have and I think Council does too. But what the remaining is is a 3.5 38154. Obviously, we want to have reserve of that. Roughly 400,000. Yeah. You funded this as listed. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But we're not yeah. And allocates this. Yes. So right now we got 3.5 is our budget. Only thing we're going to hold go ahead and we need to hold some of that back. But I'd like everybody have an opportunity to talk about the existing and then we can decide on an allocation of that to hold back for these other. Right. There's some council initiatives. Yes, sir. Yes ma'am. Right. Right. So to speak to that, Mr. Mayor, the $400,000 that I requested be held back, that is being calculated in the to be allocated number. That's part of the it's included. So you have 3.5 to be allocated. To be allocated. Wonderful. So looking at that, I would, you know, this line item, I would look to see one Columbia approved at their traditional amount of the 83,000. As we keep in mind moving forward with the potential of a use of that $400,000 for arts and culture, whatever form that we agree on with the arts community and city council. That 400 came out. Topic came up. I've discussed it with several of you from the arts and historic subcommittee about a year ago. So moving that forward. She does have it set aside that she just said. Well, not specifically. Right. It's in that number. 3.5. Where is it set aside? It's not set aside. It's not. It's not. It's it's we need to find it. I'm sorry. It's in that total. Right. It's in what total? 3.5. 3.5. 3.5. Pending city council for city council's consideration. Right. It's been requested. It's been requested. What else is in there? Pardon. The only other would be the line item agencies as y'all are discussing. And then there's another 116 that's for some allocations that are for the parks and recreation foundation, the contract that we have with river alliance and a contract for leisure fund. But this money would also support some of the other initiatives that we've talked about around beautification and gateways and things like that. Right. Which some of the council priorities we talked about at the retreat. Those I have to use these. They would not come from these funds. I mean you could. We were happy. I mean that goes more towards I think what y'all were talking about earlier. But again, that's the purpose of what I was saying earlier that if you want to consider things like that with HHS, but we also are going to be bringing you fund balance. Got it. Okay. You know, in the in additional work sessions. But yes ma'am, I think that's a wonderful opportunity to consider beautification efforts in the entertainment district. Reverend McDowell. Wait, I have one more thing. Well, we were going around the room. Oh, you're good. Oh, you cut. I was like, what? Okay. Ms. Harbert. I'm fine. I've added up all of the potential requests and it stays within budget. So I'm good. I think I'd hop to mine earlier. Thank you. I just like to understand a little bit more about the capital campaign. Is it something that we're bound by? Because that would be a $1.1 million investment for the Columbia Museum of Art. We're committed to that money over a period of five years back in 2000, yeah. And this is the last year. Because it's the left and it's the left. This year five. Did you have anything else throughout the buses? Not right now. Mr. Taylor. Um, we have a reason why we're going to $700 a day. It's a request. That's what that is. That's what I was saying. I mean, but. Everything here is a request. I understand. They asked for an extra $100,000 and we know what it's for. For additional marketing and promotions. But how is that different than the capital campaign? Are we assuming that or do we say, this is why we're asking the extra $100,000 also? It would be in part of their applications. I don't have their application in front of me, but I can pull their applications too. And then, like I said, $300. This is the last payment on the $300. Right. That was a prior commitment from me. Okay. That's what went up five. Adventure. Again, why are we going up $275,000 from last year? Most of these requests are getting back to their allocations. Exactly. Just because we used to pay something, doesn't mean that we, you know, you got to, you should have to justify it again. At least that's the way it is in my house. So do we know why, what we're getting for the extra $275,000? We can pull their applications in terms of more, but it's for additional marketing. For line-on emergencies, there are some additional operating costs that they're allowed to fund for, which is why they are in these line-on agencies. I'm saying we ought to be looking at what the increase is for. Same thing on the historic Columbia Foundation, on the going from $175,000, to $200,000. I'm not sure, I see Ms. Waites is here. I'm just not sure what my story manager can tell me later. And then my question on the Heritage Tourism Program with Historic, we use any of that money for Maintenance Cap X? It's all operating money? Just out of curiosity, where's the Maintenance Cap X money come from? Yeah. Okay. Okay. But you, okay. So you're including... Here's the... Got it. One Columbia will. That's what you were dealing with. Okay. I agree with you on that. And then the famously hot new year. Yes, ma'am. It's on... I have my sheet from, I guess, from earlier. I mean, it's on here, but it doesn't get an allocation. All right. Good. We're not doing anything... At all that we need to budget anything for there. I think we should budget something for fireworks and something else, even though I know... That's what I'm saying. Fireworks. Well, that's my question. You want to... Do we want to plug in $75,000 there for fireworks this way? I would plug in $50,000. All right. Yeah, no. We're doing new years. Mr. Mayor, I was going to... I'm sorry. I mean, as long as we... I think we need to budget it. And I think something lighter and smaller that's nicer, but gives families some place to go watch something on New Year's Eve is something that's important for us as a city. I don't... So, I mean, I would say we put a $50,000 placeholder for New Year's Eve on that. Yeah, I think so too. Great, ma'am. I think instead of not doing anything, we do something. That's what I'm saying. We do something. There's a $50,000 placeholder for something on New Year's. Would $50,000 be sufficient enough, Mr. Mayor? There's some private entities who have reached out that we're just having some conversations. So, yes, I do think it would be. Before... I still want to understand the same way that the hospitality chair so nicely explained what this additional money would be used for. Like, I feel like I'm going in blind. We have no idea what these increases are, except for that it was done in the past. So, I need more information. That's what I'm saying. When we get to the council meeting, we may just take them back to the other member. Well, I mean, I think we have to discuss here what we're... We need to hold back some of this 3.5 for these other... There's 116 that Ms. Kaufman brought forth. I know Mr. Brennan has a $400,000 look-see. I mean, there's a lot of discussion yet for us to have how we break that up. I think we do need to hold back a significant amount of this money. I do need Ms. Kaufman to give me a little bit deeper dive on adventure because we made a deal with adventure several years ago on this allocation. And I want to know what's changed. Can I ask you another question about adventure? I noticed in one of the reports recently that we do all the yard, all the landscaping maintenance. I imagine that's a fairly significant contribution that I wonder if we're getting credit for. That's part and why these groups are lying on them agencies is because of the fiduciary responsibility that the city has with some of the organizations or with some of the facilities. Adventure being one of them, the city owns the facility. So part of their operating cost is what funds, is funded through H-TACS. Through H-TACS allocation. Yeah, we are in the building, but there were... There's some background on some things that we worked out with the board several years ago. And that's why a $275,000 increase is hard for me at this point without having a deeper discussion. The sheer fact that we own the building, we don't pay the light bill either. The landscape work is a contribution to what they do. I'm just curious. I'll bet you are. I'm not familiar. You're saying that our staff does their facility operations? We do handle... I'm not going to speak to the landscaping and how much, but there are several in-kind or lack of better words items that we handle in addition to when they... I don't remember if it was the boiler. I mean, there have been repairs and things of that nature that we've taken on over the years. I understand that and having a quarrel with the fact that we don't get dollar credit for what that cost us when it comes to these contributions, all I'm saying. So basic bottom line, just another way to look at it would be to say if we did $300,000 in cash, plus our in-kind, it could be as much as a $400,000 or more contribution this past year. I just, again, no problem with it. Just need to make sure we get credit for it. I want to change the number for the adventure off of that $575,000. Well, we're taking $83,000 away right now because we're from one Columbia. And what I would answer... And I think we need to have a deeper discussion about that because nobody has reached out to council at all with any of the changes, update information or anything. And so I do think that's something that we need to have at some point on our agenda. What I was going to suggest, Mr. Mayor, is we defer these to the next man. Which would be Tuesday. No, at least to divert till we get the information that we're asking why the spreads are up. I don't think we need to vote on it this afternoon. I think we're going to have, out of the 3.5, I think we're going to have to hold back $600,000. So we would be at 2.9 to put towards these requests. What is the $600,000 for? We've got requests of $116,000 plus possibly $400,000 and a little leeway in there. Don't know that we're all using that, but that's... Well, by my math, we're at $35,000, $3.5 million, and it's only about $30,000 for famously hot new year unless we reduce some. And I think we're talking about reducing, right? Yeah. I think we're going to have to reduce it some. The question is, but we don't have enough information here to be able to make that decision. I think understanding what the increases are in each category will help us make that decision. You know, I mean, I think that's important for us to have the information that we can do that. I would have liked to have more insight besides just marketing as to what these increases are for. So I know like Historic Columbia sent a breakdown of their budget and what they'd use the $700,000 for, and it's just helpful to understand, you know, where that money would be going towards. And it might be we keep it the same, but I don't want to go in blind and just hear marketing and then approve it. I would recommend because one thing with nonprofits is they need their funds to operate, and we're already into the first year of the fiscal year. I would recommend that we at the very least consider funding them at the prior year funding. Since the only issue that we have right now is the excess. I accept that. You got it. Totally fine with that. And then we just discussed the rest? Yeah. That's included, yeah. Food number for it. Right. I'm new to this. I have a lot of questions. So the Music Festival in Philharmonic, what is our fiduciary agreement with those groups? So the, and Mr. Whitehead may want to come speak on that one, but the Music Festival Foundation is, it comes back to an old relationship or an old, I don't know if it's an act or consideration that was funded at that point in time. The Philharmonic was added by a council member at and improved by council a couple of years ago. There's not a fiduciary responsibility. The fiduciary thing, it's a state law. They have a state law saying that the city of Columbia will fund the Columbia Music Festival. So they have some of the funds. But they also act as fiduciary for several reasons. Yeah, some of the other groups. No, I just think it's important for the public and for us new folks to understand, you know, because I, there's a lot of other groups that may do similar things, but have to go through the regular H tax process. So I want, I want it to be clear to the public as to why these groups are in the line item. And the Philharmonic was just a specific kind of council ask to add that on as a line item. They all want to be line item. That's the thing that you hear. Sure, but they all want to be line item. But line item doesn't really do you any big thing. You still get looked at just like if you were down a line item. The only thing the line item does is let us take care of our fiduciary responsibility as the council for those agencies that we had a special relationship with. And all applicants are still subject, even the city are still subject to eligible activities according to what is specified in state law. So the Philharmonic would be getting actually a little bit more. They still have to follow the same rules. Sure, but it's still the, it's still the outward impression that there is something about this organization that is special, that makes them a line item. And I want to be very transparent as to why and how we decide something is a line item. And when you see something like the Philharmonic and you have three ballets as well and all of these other shows that are going through a regular process, I think it's fair to have questions asked as to by what criteria did they get to be a line item? I'm fine with it. I mean, they would actually be funded $7,500 more than what they're asking. They're actually asking for less this time around. But I would like for us to discuss being fair and being equitable in terms of how we fund certain shows and organizations and revisit whether or not that should be a line item and whether they should go through the regular process. The only one that we don't have fiduciary responsibility for is the Philharmonic. That's what I'm talking about, the Philharmonic. So in Columbia we don't. That's not, that's an organization that is not, we don't have any contracts with us. That's correct. We don't have a fiduciary responsibility on the coming of the art. We do, yeah. Are we going to be on the bill? Yeah. But you've got to be careful using the term fiduciary responsibility. That's the word. I want to make sure just for clarity and purposes, you're asking Dr. Bussell the question, you're not questioning the funding. I'm just questioning what makes something a line item versus having to go through the regular process. So it's not the funding that's. It's the process that I have concerns about. All right. Is that being a conversation with hospitals? They're really, well, we talked about the ballet, about the Philharmonic. No, no, sir. We just, I just asked Missy as to why it's been added and it sounds like it was a request by a council prior to to me being on council. Yeah. I was going to say, I was going to ask, historically, they were added in 2014 as a line item agency prior to they went through the application process like everyone else. And I wanted to provide a based off this conversation about fiduciary responsibilities. The commitment and adventure has entailed us. And then this is coming from Kelvin, who knows our general services director. And I asked him on average what we've spent. So he'll probably get that to us. But we pay for the major HVAC replacements, roof repairs replacement and any structural issues with the building. This varies from year to year. We do not pay for landscaping. Parts and rec does do the landscaping at canal park and cobalt plaza. But I don't think they necessarily do the whole building, but those are the things that we have done. And we can put a dollar amount to that for y'all. If you need us to do that between. We'll do that. And I would say they have new leadership. So I don't know if the new direct. I think he may have been there. I don't think he's been there three weeks to eat. Yeah. So to corral us back. We are going to last last year's allocations. Along with the 300,000 to finish off the capital campaign, which would be 2.5 million, 1,6385 dollars. And then the balance we will discuss and go through and get some more information and render a decision possibly next Tuesday's meeting. We all accord on on that process. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Yep. Okay. So that concludes in the hospitality tax discussions from now. So we'll move on. The next one is for the state accommodations tax. So a state accommodations tax, the total budget for state accommodations is 2.6 million. We are allocated from state accommodations tax is what specified according to state law. And that is the 25,000 that goes to the general fund as specified by state law. We also have a 5% that's called a general purpose allocation. That's 131,000. That is right now dedicated for city council did agree for allocation of $40,000 towards the community promotion grant process. That is a discussion we will bring back to you in August discussions for determination of a grant program. Also in that group is what you have funded the other part of one Columbia's contract for. So they're not listed there in the waiting for determination for city council in terms of what you would what and how you would fund the one Columbia contract. It was split between 50% general fund, 50% hospitality tax, 50% accommodation, state accommodations tax. So that's where we funded. Where is that contract? We don't have a contract at this point pending the allocation. We have a scope. We can get the scope of services that would be proposed. We're going to need that before we consider anything at this point. So remaining for allocation is 2.5 million. That's the balance as you as you also are aware state accommodations tax is also divvied up by 30% is for allocation for a tourism related promotions and marketing granted towards or not granted towards but by state law is recommended for dedicated by a tourism or civic organization. And then also the other 65% is for tourism related activities. Historically city council has allocated that as funds to two groups convention visitors Bureau or experience Columbia and Lake Murray tourism. Mr. Mayor, going back a number of years I don't remember exactly who admitted you know when we started doing 85. It would have been at least 15 years not long after the age tax funds were allocated or were started. We started the allocation at 85 15. One of the major reasons I think that the council did that was because these funds have to be reported to the Tourism Oversight Committee at the Department of Revenue Turk and these two agencies were already pre-qualified so to speak going through the review process and these are the two agencies that the accommodation tax means they mean more to the accommodation tax by bringing in people to sleep in the beds. I think we should stay with the allocation as recommended by the committee which is the 85 15 that we have done before. Mr. Mayor can I maybe address that? Let me preface by what I'm going to say but I have no quarrel at all with any of the entities operating budgets that have received our accommodations tax. In your package I wanted you to see we are the only entity that takes our 100% of our state tax and spends it and puts it into two two deals and I think what we've got to do frankly after after 14 years is look and say what's the city of Columbia's fair share and I want to make sure we're on the right side of being fair so if you look at you'll see this it just shows you what other municipalities and other government entities in the midlands are able to spend their accommodations tax on. You gave this to everybody it's this page right here. Isn't that right one Missy? It's a separate document. You can see behind it there and all I'm saying is as we look at you know as we look at our park system in particular Finley Park downtown I would tell you parks are something that we can spend ATACs money on according to the guidelines from the state. I think one of the things we have to look at as we go forward is make sure we pay our fair share but we retain some of our monies to take care of the things that other entities in the midlands are able to use to take care of theirs. And we if you look at it's just well I mean here's the second page you see that second page there yeah these are the information from other jurisdictions in the midlands just so you can see what other entities how they divide up their ATACs. And you've got Lexington County you've got the town of Lexington you've got West Columbia and you'll I just want you to say that we're the only people that do this and and again the question today is I'm not so sure what our fair amount is so I mean I'm not advocating anything like that but I do think that that us carrying the load for everybody else where they're able to take parts of their ATACs to fix up their parks their streets and you can see the other uses I'm not sure it's equitable to the citizens of Columbia and what I'd like to see us look at doing as our local ATACs becomes available is how do we capture anything outside of our fair share and dedicate it to a city parks renewal and maintenance account. Again starting with Finlay Park and downtown Columbia I mean I just don't think it's equitable for other entities to be able to use theirs for other purposes while we ask the citizens of Columbia to put a hundred percent of theirs and just two entities. I'm sure we could crush those parameters but it seems to me that over a period of time you could just have a amount of money and go towards Finlay Park. Yes sir I think between the combination of again what's the fair portion of the ATACs and I don't want to put anybody in a bad place this year but whereas the local ATACs becomes available I think Mr. McDowell you're asking I mean we could see somewhere in the neighborhood of three and a half to four and a half million dollars become available annually for us to maintain and improve our parks and beautify our city in town and could very well and could very well be some residual work on other places. Absolutely but I think I think to make this thing where everybody understands this is not about special interest you know for the city taking it's about it's about making our city a better place a more beautiful place and again I think starting with how we do downtown Columbia and the Finlay Park project will be the first place that we should reserve a significant portion of these monies and the new monies that are going to become available to rebuild and make that park the crown jewel of downtown like it was intended to be to begin with. You're just so everybody's on the same because we're talking about different you're talking about reserving a possible portion of the ATACs and tourism and other taxes not just all ATACs. I'm talking about reserving creating a you know you're taking our what's anything above what our fair share is whatever we determine our fair share to be on state ATACs same thing on the local ATACs there's a backstop that's probably going to be needed for the convention center you know a portion of it. Do we have the local ATACs? This one is state that what we're talking about now is state we do have tourism which is the local ATAC. I just want to make sure that we're all because they have different names I don't want anybody to be confused about what we're talking about. Well and that's to say for lack of a better description what we have historically called a tourism development piece a local ATAC and again I mean we should as a city backstop a portion of the loss on the convention center but I'm not so sure it's our responsibility to backstop all of the thing and again if it's four million dollars on the local ATACs you can see very quickly if we were to backstop half of the convention center deficit that would that rocks it down to 2.9 million available just annually on the local ATACs. So it gives us the ability to not do 30-year bonds or even 15-year bonds for maintenance projects but to fund them in a much shorter order which I think is a financial excellent move for the city and I think it's fair for our for our citizens. Well you also got to look at what we we will be giving up if we take some of this money away from the agencies that are bringing people into town and certainly the two that we give the money to now are the two agencies that are using that money to do publicity to bring people to the middle of the fall I said I have no quarrel with their budget okay I mean what I'm also what I do have a quarrel with is why are we the ones that fund it you know that take all of ours when nobody else does I mean I mean these other entities should be compelled to have to make contributions to these entities too. Well they do make contributions. Not at the level we do sir especially on the part especially on the participation level. No I think you I have seen budgets that show that the other entities in the Midlands contribute to Lake Murray the other entities contribute to experience Columbia. Sure there are some but my question is what's the fair amounts and what and what about the ones that that don't I mean again I have no quarrel with anybody's budget but I would I would suggest that one of the things that I saw frankly on like I say on the on the convention center the west columbia's the cases they don't contribute you know I'm not so sure about Lake Murray one but I do think our contribution to to there on the government contributions is I don't want to guess on a percentage but I think it's north of 50 percent of what they receive from local it's about 65 percent of what the budget showed they received from local governments. I don't think that is a true figure. I guess we so the ask for this year was four hundred and something thousand dollars out of a six hundred and something thousand dollar budgeted local ask is what I saw on that maybe I'm wrong and I think the issue Mr. Deval is not so much maybe what the other ones the percentage of what they do or don't do for the two groups I think we were trying to clarify when we were asked to clarify a staff is this this history of the city council doing it to the exclusion of anybody else so whatever percentages it is that other other entities are doing I don't know that they're doing it to the exclusion of any other groups or any other purposes or any other needs and so I think that is what we were asked to do I mean what y'all decide to do is what you decide to do but there's nothing binding you to do it the way it has been being done I agree with that yeah but you look at the local option sales tax there's nothing binding us from using the eight million dollars that we get in the 29% fund that goes straight to the city for using it for Finley Park or for whatever else tax reduction but sir that's not what we're talking about here Howard you just changed the subject no I'm saying that you're saying that we should change the way we do things with the accommodation tax but we do we make decisions on the local option sales tax the same way what we decided to use it all what I'm suggesting what I'm suggesting is what we're doing today is not fair to the people of Columbia that we're not taking our I'm just telling other entities are able to take their funds tourism funds and improve their city with it outside of just making contributions to two things I think candidly I think we carry again we carry a bigger load than what our fair deal is well the majority of this money goes to the convention center and I think it is our responsibility to put the 85 percent money into the convention center it brings people in we're one of three entities that are responsible for it and we're at 65 percent of the money that goes in there not saying that we don't need to but why wouldn't we just for argument's sake here for a minute why wouldn't we keep $500,000 out of that budget to use to do other things and improve and help other entities in this community because we're taking the load for for the majority of these other folks and some of it's got to be equitable spent we always want to be the player but we can't fund everything and if you look throughout our budgets we are funding everything this is a discussion about how we move forward we we may all decide that we may not make a change in 2022 but moving forward we're going to change we don't know that that's why we're having this discussion let me just give you an example real quick I had the floor and he interrupted me so no just an example would be privilege I didn't complain no an example would be for example you and I don't think I would ever ask anybody to use general fund dollars for these tourism expenses but let's just say for example you know one of the things that I heard is it's our responsibility because we collect this much a tax well you know another local entity here may not collect as much a tax as we do but they collect property tax on all of our hotels here and we provide all the services so why wouldn't they fund a bigger share of their a tax out of maybe their h tax money which they may have a surplus on I mean again I will make it clear I'm not arguing about budgets I'm just saying okay what's the equitable fair piece for the citizens of Columbia to carry and I think we've got an opportunity here and that we should take a look is is it right especially as we're coming out of this the bonds on the convention center as do we begin to take some of our tourism money to improve the other things that can draw people into Columbia. Ms. Herbert then thank you I was going to make the recommendation that we send this issue to the economic and community development committee I do believe again with certain businesses I don't like to drop the hammer in the middle of their fiscal year but this gives us six months to come up with the plan or even closer I think we need to do it closer but I mean you want to give the organizations at least six months lead time and I'm thinking that you would really enjoy the referral. Well let me let me say this I made it I think I said earlier I mean I have no desire to put anybody that receives these monies in a bad way this year I think it's a trans you know it's a transitional thing for us to take a look at hopefully we're coming out of this COVID now and and the I know and then we and I'm getting right here's the second one and we don't get into a recession you might have monkey fuck yeah so everything goes up so I don't want to put anybody in a bad way but I do think it's I do think and I would I would I would you know Mr. Mayor I mean I'd be willing to move these forward at a certain level okay sure yeah Mr. Mayor I for whoever provided the accommodations tax breakdowns from the other counties and municipalities this is this is very interesting stuff to understand that we can spend our accommodations taxes on beautification of our parks and recreational facilities I tell you go soccer season's right around the corner Mr. Mayor and what do we hear come uh come ymca soccer season at Owens field and we've been digging and digging looking for turf management new facility over there I have fallen on the same rocks at Owens Field playing soccer as my my three-year-old son's about to do this so it's it's eye-opening to know that there is a path forward for upgrading because you know we we scramble we claw for capital improvement budgets a lot of times we we rely on the state for the park program when it comes to these so very very interested to see a new path emerge with these accommodation taxes so I just wanted to say thank you for providing I guess Mr. Taylor that was you or missy I'm not sure a snapshot of what what other local governments are spending their accommodation tax on I would agree with miss Herbert that with it being basically almost august at this point this I agree with councilman Taylor that this is something we need to revisit and I would be supportive of us not allocating the full amount next year and looking at some of our priorities and using it towards beautification and some of the other things that we're not able to fund but that perhaps we move forward this year with the full disclosure on the record that this is likely to change for these two organizations next year and that they should prepare accordingly so that there's no surprises when we come back to this discussion in a year Mr. Mayor um councilman Herbert's recommendation was funded at the I guess some level at the recommended is that correct okay and then bring it back for a process moving forward so if you take it at the recommended why not the same approaches we we did with h tax the approved numbers from last year throw it to economic development subcommittee for a summary of who pays in through the various accommodations if I if I could add on so what's what they asked what let's just they don't ask but they just give a split so you gotta tell me they don't it's a requested amount now missy can you what we're gonna so I would say some of these groups may not actually be eligible for these funds a tax funds wait so I have a question when they request do they request a dollar amount or do they request the percentage of the a tax and that's why we're seeing a fluctuation because there's more a tax we we do so so you do allocate accommodations tax completely because of the way state law works with these funds they're very specific the committee there is an actual state committee called turk which is the tourism expenditure something other committee they review these applications to review the expenditures of this committee as well so there are a few more hoops in that piece so city so typically these funds are allocated 100 percent in addition to what's requested here when we end up having surplus in the year those funds also are allocated to the two groups in the same equal amount the column there is a column that shows the committee didn't have that much to spend so they allocated the available amount by the 1585 percent and that's just the budget that's the that's based on the budget available projected budget for this year we have not talked about surplus from 2022 just ended we don't have that number for you yet here's can I just maybe so I mean what I'd like to recommend that we do for this year with with the clear understanding of what Dr. Boussles just said that we're going to reevaluate this and look at what's what's fair and what I would suggest that we do is the Lake Murray at the ATACS advisory committee recommendation at 375 for 87 and then 75 percent of the 21 27762 for this year no 75 percent of that 21 and the full 375 for the full committee recommendation well missy says that their surplus surplus funds coming through that hadn't been allocated yet that's what we're trying to get to boss is where we got those surplus funds we'll have them yet well we do have them no we don't know the surplus yet from June 30 that just ended in part because the the collections for state accommodations tax come in quarterly from the state we won't get those and one of the reasons that I said this is that way instead of reducing these even more to create more of a surplus I'm counting that we're going to have some more surplus money what you're saying Joe is 375 for 375 for 87 is what I would suggest for the capital city for for this year and then 75 percent whoever's got a calculator 21 27 times point 75 that you follow where I'm coming from yeah that's all again I want to I try to preface this by saying to go I didn't I got no quarrel with anybody's budget I don't want to put anybody in a bad way but we've got to start as a city doing what other cities are doing and retaining our fear we got to pay our fair share I mean that's that's without a doubt you're going to determine our fair share but that's the question well I mean we're not going to determine it today but Howard I would just suggest to you and I'm not saying this is the measure but let me put it in perspective for everybody you know I was just putting in perspective I just think this is interesting for what it's worth that if you take the the um in Richland County alone the city of Columbia population is 32.74 percent if you want to look at it on just on population Richland election and combined the city of Columbia is 19.24 percent now where we're paying on these and where our population is it's not it's just it's it doesn't send it to the subcommittee is to look at the summary and everything okay yeah we're not good that's what I say we today we want to make sure everybody's got the money they need to operate this year and now we got time but I do want to put a time end of calendar year that's right and and let me just I would like to add to that because I think it's important that we give everybody the the ability to go see the counties and the cities that may not be contributing at all or contributing their fair share and get them and get them in the you know get them in the program it's one million five five hundred ninety five thousand eight hundred twenty one dollars I heard the conversation of state act a tax dollars and local a tax dollars and there is a difference just wanted to make sure that everyone understands that the other point I wanted to make was uh what does that mean going with this last year's over at the end of the year when that state check does come in because our organization has made some contractual commitments so it's kind of important we know and and I'm sure for experience Columbia as well when we receive the application this year to apply for these funds we had under the understanding that it would still be the 8515 and as far as looking at other governments and to how they're spending their dollars for instance we promote a four-county area Saluta County has no accommodations tax money to give out also the level of your amount of money you collect and accommodations taxes is where Turk kicks in and where they are looking at these large entities these large governmental entities to do with the law says and that is the purpose of the accommodations tax money is to market to fill your hotels to generate more a tax money thank you for all you're doing so I have a couple more questions Missy in terms of this surplus is there a range of what you could estimate that we get so the that's a good question the alak the budget for the year that just ended 2021-22 was only at about 1.4 million we I think we projected about 1.4 1.5 million so based on collections I think we are already at those collections to date or close to so I mean we could have a several hundred thousand dollar surplus this year so I guess then my question is we are funding Lake Murray at 100% which is great if we're going to have that surplus how much of a surplus are you all looking for this year I think that's a good discussion for this this money not getting spent between now right but then but then my question is why are you know where is the 1.6 million coming from is there a reason for that or is there or could we do 2 million or 2 but like what what was the thought process to cut that back that's what I'm trying to understand we may want to use this towards parks or some other stuff we we traditionally where we are now we know they all they got 2.1.2 last year right and and 200 to Lake Murray I mean there are there's increases already at this point and obviously you know there's been discussion about they could be applicants for age tax as well which they haven't in the past because of this all this is up for discussion I just don't want to go spend 2.5 million dollars today without understanding what we may enhance other parts of our community is because we're limited on dollars and we've invested everything here we may in three months go you know what gentlemen we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna send you another 500 thousand dollars because we have all this surplus and and and put it whole we just don't know that yet so so that's that that's that's kind of where I think there's a little bit of confusion we're talking about the surplus that comes from the state after June 30th and then we're also talking about leaving some money in the pot that is our that we already know we have which is a 2.5 is that correct we're talking about two different pots of money 200,000 200,000 500,000 because if you do 1.6 doesn't mean that we may not serve if we have a whole lot come in from the state we may say you know what we're gonna put 500 here we're gonna put 500 over there we may put 250 to enhance parks are we sure because of is the recommendations are the recommendations listed here missy for the other four entities I guess that applied at zero because of the percentage breakout approach or is it also because there was some ineligibility issues combination of both some of these were not actually eligible and some of it was for example the high school league right okay so the council is going to be given that information if they are doing this whole back approach and I'm not saying that they they're gonna entertain that but I think they need to have all the information and what I was thinking miss wilson was when you look up there you know we the black pages was taking care of h tax the feed the city was evaluated by h tax if the high school league if that if that materializes I don't know if I don't think that ask I think that ask was too much to begin with and we can always come back and make an allocation either out of h tax or a tax if it if it if it qualifies and we would need to re-engage the I mean one of the thing I don't want to change the subject let's just say we're going to charge our sports authority with perhaps looking at the high school league products as bowl games in our city and ask him to assist in finding sponsors and things like that that would cover that instead of the instead of us covering as a city and we we could bring back the accommodation tax committee to reevaluate any additional allocations we're not taking all that money is sitting on the sidelines currently until we can take a look and make a decision and depending on what comes in we may do that but I think it's wise for us to to take this step forward and can I just I just would add one of the reasons I think we're looking at this thing is as we you know as the city manager Ms. Kaufman worked to really refine a a four five six seven year maintenance cap x and cap x plan we're identifying funding streams that can go in there to make that happen so we can plan ahead of time and and I tip my hat to Ms. Kaufman I think I think this is a really good track for us to be on to make sure we get these capital projects financed and in the best way that let us let's us do more of them. I have a question. Yes ma'am. During the application process are the applicants made aware of what we think the projected amount will be? I think we well when the applications are done no we don't usually have we don't usually know at that point but it does get shared at some point and plus you know other budget discussions but yes. Okay. I just have heartburn about going 75 percent going to 75 percent would feel comfortable maybe with two million and I think the other thing is treating the entities differently I don't know what the rationale is with that. It's a five hundred thousand dollar increase. Well yeah we would take five hundred thirty one thousand dollars from them. But we're adding five hundred thousand dollars more than what they got last year. They're not taking away they're getting more than they got last year. I know that. Can't work backwards. Well I know that part but they ask for what they get are not the same numbers. Right and I totally get that I'm just worried about for planning purposes because of what has traditionally been done for 15 years how that impacts their budget that's that's what I'm saying. And then I do think we should I'm not arguing that we take money from both but I do think that they're I think that the convention center might feel like well you take the money from me take the money from the other organization I'm not advocating to take from both but I do have some concern about one entity taking the burden. I would just to say that if something happens a big event comes up you know there's nothing but preclude somebody from coming back to the well. I just I think this is the really good way to do this. We do fund two two point two million of their shortfall. I was getting ready to say that we didn't make it. It's not like we don't we we're not funding them in multiple ways and which is a lot more than the other entities are funding in a split. So look if something comes up and there's things we know it's there we're not spending this money. Well so are we saying that we fund that and that so there is a difference between how we treat the two organizations. Let me justify the difference. Well I mean I could look at hospitality and make the same case that we give them fifty thousand and seventy five thousand dollars to other organizations and we're only given ten and two percent and five percent to others. I mean everything plays a different role based on its needs and outcomes. Well no all I'm saying is I rather we explain the why we treat them differently. But I just wanted for clarification because I think we're not going to talk about the local ATACs or the TDF today are we. That's what I was saying. What the mayor is saying is just I mean right now we're funding basically a two point two million dollar shortfall out of the local ATAC side to convince center on top of that. And that's a distinction. That's what I'm saying. That is a distinction that we can. So they have other pots of money from the city. Yeah that's all I'm saying. It's important for people to know like you some of you all have information from being around this for a while that not everybody knows and I think it's important for us to say it out loud so that people understand the full picture of why we're making the decisions that we are. So yes. Mr. Devall. The opioid funds are being dispersed or talked about now and I've seen some information on spreadsheets on what the city of Columbia may be getting by the distribution of the funds. Have you all. That's your director or your appointees right there. Not your muscles. Vice chairman. She controls the purse strings there. Well I hope Dr. muscles will make sure that her home city is well taken care of. I will recuse myself for the application so we put in but we do have a what they call a municipal allocation that will be coming over the next year. I don't have the number off the top of my head but we have a it's several hundred thousand that's allocated this first year for Columbia. Have you got a list of the things that we can spend it on. Yeah we are creating that criteria as we speak so hopefully we can release that and we plan on doing multiple. There's like going to be three kind of cycles throughout the years that you can apply as it's appropriate for for your project. Glad we're in good hands. Well I mean I'll be honest when you look at the breakdown and how long and we don't get near the amount that I think that the community should get out of that money. Our city attorney's office is our legal council. I'm not so sure the lawyers didn't win on that one. We're ready to go upstairs and so just to summarize we are going to do the full and then one point one point six is what I last heard but then I heard some discussions about something else one point six and hold the other until further discussions and no discussions yet of surplus either we don't know yet we don't know what the number is you can't have a conversation about something you don't know. I'm going to coordinate I'm going to collaborate with some others that were also listening and taking good notes and we'll have a summary for you to have at your meeting. It's a great note. Yeah and then that was all the other you need a motion to adjourn. Let me just say this I certainly appreciate the conversation and I think it's already been referred to committee where we can have an in-depth deep in the dive dive deep into the weeds of all that we're talking about today. It would certainly be helpful for us to hear that committee's report afterwards. And we're going to formally refer at the city council meeting. Yes. That is correct. Okay. Thank you sir.