Warren County committee votes to seek $300,000 state marketing grant, tourism staff to reallocate $200,000 as match

The Warren County Occupancy Tax Coordination Committee voted June 22 to apply for an Empire State Development (Market New York) marketing grant of up to $300,000 to fund a countywide arts, entertainment and culture promotional campaign that would leverage the Glens Falls DRI initiative.

Tourism staff said the proposed application would request up to $300,000 in state funds and that the department would increase its own contribution to strengthen the application. "If we get awarded, I'm gonna write the grant for nothing more than $300,000," the tourism presenter said, adding that the plan calls for reallocated tourism-budget dollars rather than a request for new county appropriations.

Committee discussion centered on how the grant match would work. Staff described the state program as a 50/50 match for some categories, with a maximum $100,000 direct award from the grant in some components; the tourism office proposed using $200,000 from its budget as the county's contribution to improve the application's competitiveness. Staff said the $200,000 would come from existing line items in the tourism contract and be reflected in the 2027 budget planning process; if the grant is not awarded, staff said the office would scale the campaign down and use existing dollars for a smaller effort.

The committee also reviewed event-related applications under the Market New York program. Staff said one grant category supports large-scale events and identified two events (one cultural and one athletic) that could be written into the application; each event was described as having a $200,000 program cost with a $100,000 reimbursable component from the state. Members discussed whether previously approved tribal event funds would need to be reapproved because prior allocations had expired and whether the county could use earlier allocations as match if the expenses fit the approved scope.

On the motions: the committee amended an earlier figure and approved a formal resolution to apply for the ESD/Market New York grant at the $300,000 level. The panel also approved related event applications and a three-year commitment for the Ironman 70.3 event during the meeting.

Why it matters: Occupancy-tax dollars are restricted to tourism promotion and related uses; committee members said they view the Market New York grant as an opportunity to leverage state funding to expand county marketing without asking for new county operating funding. Supporters argued that adding local match can improve scoring in competitive grant rounds; some supervisors said they were concerned about the budget impact and asked for clearer projections on how the reallocated $200,000 would be spent and what would happen if tax receipts decline.

The committee asked tourism staff to provide a finalized plan and promised further oversight as the grant application proceeds. The resolution to apply for the grant will be forwarded according to committee procedure for any further board-level action.