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Council postpones accommodations tax awards after questions about scoring and committee makeup
Summary
Council reviewed the accommodations tax committee’s recommendations but raised concerns about award methodology and potential conflicts of interest; members asked for city funding data and delayed final awards unanimously.
Greenwood County Council received the accommodations-tax committee’s recommendation for distributing roughly $161,000 in funds and asked staff to provide additional data before finalizing awards.
Tourism staff member Louis summarized the committee’s recommendations and explained the color-coded chart showing last year’s awards, this year’s requests and the committee’s recommended awards. He explained the state’s distribution rules and noted that Greenwood did not receive a supplemental state payment this year that it had received previously.
Council members raised several concerns: why some long-standing nonprofits, such as the county museum, received no award; the committee’s apparent practice of starting awards at half the requested amount, which some members said skewed allocations; and a perception-of-conflict issue where several committee members serve on boards of organizations that applied for funds. Council asked Louis to add a column showing matching city contributions and agreed to postpone final action so they could re-examine the recommendations with that additional data.
What happens next: Staff will update the committee worksheet to include city funding and return the item for further discussion and a vote at a subsequent meeting.
