Midway council delays TAP tax awards, orders staff and small committee to review applications

Midway City Councilors postponed decisions on Tourism/Arts/Parks (TAP) tax grant applications and directed staff and a small council subcommittee to review materials and gather additional information before final awards.

Councilors said the pool of applicants and uneven application detail made it hard to compare requests fairly. They asked staff to require uniform budget breakdowns, clarify whether applicants would accept partial awards, and flag line items that may be ineligible under the program. Staff also told the council that TAP money collected in one fiscal year may be constrained by state reserve rules and, if rolled over, must be moved to the capital projects fund and used for capital projects.

Why it matters: The TAP tax funds events, arts and capital projects that proponents say bring visitors and economic activity to Midway. Councilors noted both the need to award funds to support local arts and the legal and accounting limits that can restrict how leftover TAP funds are used.

What the council directed and decided - Postponement: Councilors agreed to delay final award decisions until the next regular meeting (about two weeks). Several council members volunteered to do a focused review in the interim and return recommendations to the full council. Staff will notify applicants and request missing budget details where needed. - Review group: Two council members volunteered to do deeper application reviews and to assemble suggested rankings and follow‑up questions for the council to consider at the next meeting. - Application changes and process improvements: Councilors asked staff to tighten the application form going forward so entries are “apples to apples,” to add a required total-event budget line and to include a field indicating if an applicant can accept a partial award or requires full funding to proceed. Councilors discussed using a common rubric or stack‑ranking method to make individual councilor priorities comparable. - Contracting and accountability: Staff described planned contract and reporting requirements for awardees, including receipt tracking and short-term follow-up reporting, and said awarded funds should not be held on the city’s books across fiscal years where avoidable.

Financial context and timing Councilors were told that applicants in this round requested roughly $82,000 in aggregate and that about $103,000 was available from TAP collections covering July–December 2024. Council staff noted an earlier carryover of funds that had been moved into the capital projects (CIP) fund in prior years. Under state law discussed at the meeting, municipalities must manage general-fund reserves within a 5%–35% guideline; the city’s explanation was that funds exceeding the allowable reserve levels may be placed in the capital projects fund, where they can only be used for capital projects (staff cited a practical lower limit of qualifying capital spending at roughly $5,000 and said the money must be used for a physical asset).

Other recurring issues raised Councilors highlighted several recurring concerns: inconsistent application detail (some submissions lacked full budgets), the need to know whether applicants have matching funds or other TAP requests, how to treat equipment purchases versus event funding, and how to score benefits to Midway specifically (for example, frequency of an event in Midway, whether Midway talent is used, and local economic spillovers). Several councilors said they preferred not to change criteria retroactively for applications that were submitted under earlier forms; others argued applicants who submitted incomplete information should be asked to supplement their submissions.

Next steps and timeline Staff will contact applicants flagged as time‑sensitive and will collect requested clarifications from applicants who did not provide full budgets or other required details. Two council members will compile a ranked recommendation and a list of follow‑up questions for the full council. The council intends to revisit awards at the next scheduled meeting in roughly two weeks.

Reporting and oversight Council members asked staff to present a consistent evaluation worksheet going forward, and to continue tracking awarded funds with written agreements requiring receipts and a follow-up report. Staff also agreed to research whether escrow or other mechanisms could be used to commit awarded funds without counting them as expenditure in the city’s general fund across fiscal years.