Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

In the near future, I plan to introduce legislation which will amend the County Code to provide counties of the fourth class (populations 145,000 – 209,999) the option to raise the ceiling on hotel room tax from 3% to 5% in order to generate more revenue for tourism promotion.

75% of all revenue collected for the hotel room tax will be used by the county’s Tourism Promotion Agency (TPA) for the promotion, advertising, and marketing of tourism and special events and for administrative costs.

25% of all revenues received shall be distributed as follows:

• 50% shall be used by the county commissioners for the purpose of economic development and historic preservation, and the arts.
• 50% shall be used by the county commissioners for grants to municipalities that have a municipal police department employing at least two full-time police officers assigned to law enforcement duties and who work a minimum of two hundred days per year or are a member of a regional police department that provides full-time police services to the municipality pursuant to an agreement or contract.

This legislation will give the County Commissioners in fourth class counties some flexibility in determining how to meet funding needs for tourism promotion.