Taos County rolls out Submittable portal for lodgers tax grants; May 15, 2026 set as final cutoff

Taos County’s new lodgers tax coordinator, Dylan Cox, demonstrated a Submittable-based grant workflow for grantees and outlined how to submit reimbursement requests and final reports on the county’s new platform.

“My name is Dylan Cox, and I’m the new Lodges Tax Coordinator for Taos County,” Cox said, introducing himself as the primary contact for lodgers tax grant activities and the staff member who transferred application ownership to grantees’ primary emails.

Cox guided participants through account setup, saying applicants must accept ownership transfers or create a Submittable account with the email that received the transfer. He pointed attendees to four key tabs on the applicant dashboard: Activity (full history and communications), Messages (direct correspondence with county staff), Forms (reimbursement requests, final report, budget reallocation request), and Awards/Payments (award amount, amount paid, remaining balance).

On reimbursement requests, Cox said grantees should submit a batch of eligible expenses with itemized, legible invoices and proof of payment. He warned that invoices dated before a project’s purchase order are not eligible for reimbursement and that collaborators can edit reimbursement drafts but only the submission owner may finalize and submit requests.

Cox demonstrated the administrator side of the workflow: after an applicant submits a reimbursement request, county finance reviews the memo and the administrator marks the request accepted or declined; the applicant receives a notification via Messages and the Forms tab when processing is complete.

During a pause for questions, participant Carilia asked: "If it's rejected, are there prompts as to what you're missing?" Cox replied the county will contact applicants through the Messages tab to resolve missing items rather than rely on templated rejection messages.

Several grantees reported that their Awards page did not show award or payment history. Regina asked, "When can we expect that to actually get populated?" Cox said he would investigate after the webinar and expected those fields to show total awards and transaction history on applicants’ dashboards.

Cox reviewed the final report requirements: grantees must submit a table comparing budgeted to actual expenses, an updated vendor list, 2–4 promotional samples (media placements, ads, video links), and a short descriptive report on outcomes and challenges. He said failure to submit the final report could jeopardize approval of funding and emphasized that May 15, 2026 is the hard cutoff for final reports and reimbursements for the grant fiscal year, though the county will consider limited exceptions for requests already under review.

The county also plans to add a budget reallocation request form to allow grantees to shift funds between line items when project plans change. Staff said the county is still defining thresholds that would require a formal reallocation request and solicited grantee input; participants suggested examples such as moving funds into a previously unused line item or shifting a substantial percentage (one participant proposed 30% as an example) of a line item as material.

Cox said the county will post the webinar recording to the Taos County Lodgers Tax webpage and email attendees. He also said, as he assumes lodgers tax duties from former staffer Jessica, the county expects to host in-person workshops in 2026 to help applicants prepare for the next application round.

The webinar closed with Cox inviting feedback through the Messages tab and promising to follow up on dashboard population issues raised by multiple participants.