Officials in Franklin County, New York are hoping this will be the year that they will be able to impose a new occupancy tax as the Assembly moves its proposal to the state Senate.
The New York State Assembly has passedlegislation that would allow Franklin County to impose a 5 percent motel and hotel occupancy tax. 115th District Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, the bill sponsor, says the revenues would spur tourism and economic development. “They have been one of the few counties that didn’t have an occupancy tax. With the great things that are happening over there with the Adirondack Club and Resort and new hotels and motels in Saranac Lake and even just the fact that they’ve had the prison closure and the economy is tough over there this will give them a source of revenue that will go directly to tourism. It’s going to be a relief to taxpayers because they won’t have to raise that money through taxes. It will be done by people who come to visit. It’s huge. It’s the number one priority for Franklin County. In the Chamber of Commerce survey they do every year 93 percent of the business people across the whole North Country said that is one of their top priorities.”
Franklin County is one of only a few counties that does not impose an occupancy, also called a bed, tax. Board of Legislators Chair Billy Jones notes that this is the third time they have tried to get what he refers to as a home rule measure approved in Albany. “The reason we’re trying to get it is pretty simple. It is proven actually that people will not be dissuaded by an occupancy tax. They’re not going to be turned away by another 2 or 3 or 4 dollars on their room because every other place basically in the country has it. So we don’t feel that they’re going to be dissuaded by coming here if we get it. And we want it to promote economic growth to promote our tourism development. This fund will be used strictly for marketing tourism and our tourism development. So we feel it will be a big economic boon for Franklin County.”
Franklin County Tourism Advisory Board Chair Chris LaBarge says their goal is to eliminate the need to use local taxpayer money to fund tourism promotion. “Franklin County is at a significant disadvantage. You know $125,000 available funds for marketing is really not a lot of money. To give you an idea, Essex County collects maybe $1.8 or $2 million in occupancy tax dollars. Obviously they have a fair amount of hotel rooms. Our collections are estimated to be around $400,000 which would certainly position us with almost four times the amount of revenue available to do marketing. It would certainly help and put us at an advantage as opposed to the disadvantage we have today with the minimal funds available.”
The Assembly has passed the measure before only to have it fail in the Senate. Jones remains hopeful that this time the chamber will listen to the county’s perspective. “I just think it gets grouped in with other taxes and the Senate has said in the past that they’re not going to approve any new taxes. I can respect that. But I feel that our tax for Franklin County is just putting us on a level playing field with everyone else.”
The bill was passed by the Assembly on May 5th and is now being reviewed by the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee.
