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While bed tax increased in the county since last April, it appears to be staying flat within city limits, according to Crescent City’s finance director.

The city’s transiency occupancy tax — the extra 10 percent visitors staying at local hotels, RV parks, Airbnbs and vacation rentals pay — has  been stagnant during the first six months of the 2019-2020 fiscal year compared to the same time frame last fiscal year, Finance Director Linda Leaver told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Friday.

“We’re not projecting that our TOT will come in lower than last year, but it’s come in lower than we originally budgeted,” Leaver said. “We do track it every quarter, so we’re just keeping an eye on it. If we see anything needs to be investigated our next step would be to reach out to the chamber and potentially reach out to hotel owners directly to provide us with insight as to what’s going on.”

During a mid-year budget update before the Crescent City Council on March 2, Leaver said the transiency occupancy tax within city limits has decreased by about $24,000 from what was initially budgeted for.

Though she noted that it’s not a huge percentage out of the roughly $1.4 million in TOT the city is expected to receive, Leaver said it’s a trend her staff will keep an eye on.

According to Leaver’s presentation TOT revenue within city limits has increased by just under $1.2 million in 2014-15 to a peak of about $1.5 million in 2017-18 before declining the following fiscal year of $1.43 million.

“Last fiscal year, 18-19, was the first time in a long time where our actual TOT revenues came in less than the year before,” Leaver told the Council. “We’re keeping a close eye on it this year.”

In the original 2019-2020 budget, the city projected TOT revenue to be up 2.3 percent over last fiscal year based on inflation, according to Leaver. However, the revised 2019-2020 budget shows it’s 0.6 percent over the previous fiscal year, according to her presentation.

On March 2, Leaver proposed reducing the city’s budget by about $24,000 makes it equal to what the city received last year, she said.

Crescent City has 25 active vacation rentals within its city limits, Leaver said. Four that opened in fiscal year 2017-18 and fiscal year 2018-19 have closed, which equates to a loss of $3,000 to $6,000 per year in TOT, according to her presentation. Seven new rentals have opened in fiscal year 2018-19 or fiscal year 2019-20, she said, totaling $13,000 in TOT revenue for the current fiscal year.

Six vacation rentals have not paid their TOT for the most recent quarter, Leaver said. But the impact to the overall budget is minimal — about $2,000 — she said.

As for hotels, motels and RV parks, 12 out of the 17 that are active within city limits reported that for the first half of this year their TOT was either the same or less than what they reported the first half of the 2018-19 fiscal year, Leaver said.

“My recommendation is just to project the TOT basically equal to last year,” she said. “If things turn around and improve, it’ll come in higher than budgeted, but that’s a better position to be in than budgeting for revenues we don’t receive.”

Meanwhile, for the county, Lynette Braillard of LuLish Design, told the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors last month that TOT had increased by about 28 percent from April 1, 2019. From April 1-June 30 2019, TOT increased by 8 percent from the previous year. During the first quarter of the 2019-2020 fiscal year — from July 1-Sept. 30, 2019 — TOT in the county increased by 10 percent.

TOT in the county increased by 10 percent again in the second quarter of the 2019-2020 fiscal year — from Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2019 — according to Braillard.

Braillard’s Feb. 11 presentation to the Board of Supervisors only included TOT outside of the Crescent City limits, said Cindy Vosburg, executive director of the Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. In an email to the Outpost, Vosburg said she hadn’t seen the city’s TOT numbers yet.

According to Vosburg, who gave a similar presentation to the Crescent City Council at its Feb. 18 meeting, many factors determining the number of visitors to Del Norte County is out of the Visitors Bureau’s control. This includes the economy, gas prices, consumer confidence and the job market, she said. The Visitors Bureau uses TOT revenue, traffic to the Visit Del Norte website, social media engagement and referral traffic from Visit Del Norte to track its success, Vosburg said.

It’s also difficult to determine how many visitors travel through the region since Redwood National and State Parks doesn’t operate gates, Vosburg said.

“California as a whole is showing a slow down in visitation in most all counties from what I can tell,” Vosburg told the Outpost. “What the percentage or the count is I am not sure, but we seem to be trending along with the rest of California.”

Vosburg also noted that with the year anniversary of Del Norte’s partnership with Braillard coming up, the numbers in her presentation before the Board of Supervisors and the City Council offer a baseline of measuring future successes.

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