The Snyder Chamber of Commerce heard a presentation from certified public accountant Ricky Bowman, who said in the future, hotel occupancy tax (HOT) funds could be considered unrestricted if unspent.
Chamber Chairman Merle Taylor — who is also Snyder’s City Manager — said Bowman wasn’t taking into account a contract between the chamber and the city.
“What we’re saying is, at the end of each year, what the city contributes to the chamber of commerce for hotel/motel, travel and tourism, all of that, becomes unrestricted. It has no more restrictions from the donor,” Bowman said.
Taylor said that in fact the Chamber is contractually obligated to use that money to help put “heads in beds” in Snyder.
“The City of Snyder has a contract with the Snyder Chamber of Commerce,” Taylor said. “It says in the contract that the chamber of commerce will administer those funds as required by state law for their intended purpose — and that is to bring ‘heads to beds’ and support the events that encourage travel and tourism to Snyder. I feel like he probably didn’t realize that we had a contract. The City of Snyder administration and council and mayor are responsible for the funds and we have a fiduciary responsibility to see that they’re taken care of properly. With the contract we also pass that on to the chamber of commerce. It falls a little more under their expertise for the tourism and events.”
Taylor said HOT funds are not a general disbursement to the Snyder Chamber of Commerce.
“Those HOT funds are there to be spent on travel and tourism events that bring heads and beds to Snyder hotels,” he said. “It’s not intended to be a savings account or anything. That money is there to be spent directly on what brings tourism to town.”
Bowman, who was at the meeting to discuss the annual financial audit, said the chamber’s net assets increased by more than $116,000 this year.
“You’ll see total revenues and gains without government restrictions: $227,057. That is money that y’all generated through different programs and events, and a little bit of unrealized appreciation of almost $18,000 in one of your funds that y’all have with Edward Jones, some member dues of $38,377, and dividends and interest and capital gains of $6,110. Those will probably all go away after this year. Who knows.”
“The next set of numbers, restrictions satisfied by expenditures: $535,739. That’s what the City of Snyder contributed during the year. That all came in. Then let’s go down through the expenses. You had $646,346 in expenses. So the net increase in assets: $116,450. At the end of the year, we had, the very bottom line, a fund balance, a net asset balance, of $504,327.”
Chamber board members voted unanimously to approve the financial audit.
In other business, the Chamber board voted unanimously to approve recommendations of the HOT Fund committee to disburse $24,500 in grants for three events.
The Diez y Seis de Septiembre festival, scheduled Sept. 11 and 12, will receive $6,500 of a requested $8,000; the Snyder Bike Rally, scheduled Oct. 2-4, will receive $8,000 of a requested $10,000; and White Buffalo Days, scheduled Oct. 2 and 3, will receive the entire $10,000 requested on its behalf.
All events will have 12.5 percent of their grants withheld until the post-event report is submitted to the chamber.