MORGANTOWN — The Monongalia County Commission on Wednesday committed to extending its efforts to assist the Visit Mountaineer Country Convention & Visitors Bureau through the end of the fiscal year.
Last July, the commission began forgoing half of the county’s 6% lodging tax, opting instead to pass the entire amount to the CVB, due to the pandemic’s impact on tourism.
As COVID-19 ramped up last spring, VMCCVB was forced to cut down from 11 staff members to one. Three of those employees have since been brought back.
A letter to the commission from CVB President and CEO Susan Riddle and CVB Board of Directors Chair Craig Walker said the additional 3% of lodging taxes totaled $182,443 through February.
The letter notes that without those additional funds, “our organization would not have been able to maintain our operations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
By statute, the county must provide the CVB with at least 50% of the county’s lodging taxes, or taxes on hotel and motel rooms.
According to the CVB’s letter, the agency intends to go back to that 50% arrangement with the start of the new fiscal year, on July 1.
In other county news, West Virginia Auditor J.B. McCuskey dropped in on Wednesday’s commission meeting to discuss the flood of American Rescue Plan dollars headed to West Virginia.
As he did during Tuesday’s Morgantown City Council meeting, McCuskey said his office intends to use its existing relationship with transparency and accounting program OpenGov to not only track COVID relief funds but assist cities and counties in spending that money appropriately.
“The first set of money went to the governor, and they told you what you could and couldn’t use it for. This money is going to you directly and the cities directly, and, interestingly, it ends up becoming my office that will tell you what you can and can’t do with it,” he said. “But typically that would happen after you’ve already spent it.”
McCuskey said West Virginia is ahead of the curve in this regard noting he has requests from states including Delaware, Ohio, and Tennessee, which are looking for assistance in implementing similar systems.
Staying up to date on the federal guidelines coming with the money will be key, McCuskey said, as, one, they’re likely to change quickly and two, the price of nearly all projects will skyrocket once the money starts getting delivered across the country.
“Our hope is we can save a tremendous amount of money by our cities and counties looking to us for that guidance,” McCuskey said.
Monongalia County is expected to receive just over $20 million. Thus far, it sounds like at least a portion of that will be devoted to the county-wide expansion of broadband.
The Monongalia County Commission was the first government body to sign onto McCuskey’s OpenGov push, in August of 2018.
Lastly on Wednesday, the commission approved $16,200 to assist with cleanup following three, three-day baseball tournaments to be held at the Monongalia County Ballpark.
COVID-compliant cleanup is estimated at $1,800 per game.
The funds will come from a line item of $25,000 put aside to support events at the ballpark.
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