Carson City Convention & Visitor's Bureau gives $70K to parks and recs

The Carson City Convention & Visitor's Bureau approved giving $70,000 to the Carson City Parks and Recreation Department to fund sports tournaments that come to the capital.

The tourism officials approved the funding at their board meeting Monday evening. Those sports tournaments brought in about $15 million worth of economic impact to Carson City last year, according to the Parks and Recreation Department.

The plan is to now give the Parks and Recreation Department $25,000 from the bureau's current budget while the remaining $45,000 is slated for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.

As a result, the board will need to find a new way to raise $45,000 for the fiscal year that starts in 2012.

"I think it may be time ... to sit down at a table together to talk about raising the room tax," said Candy Duncan, the executive director of the CCCVB. Duncan said a 1 percent increase would mean about $125,000 in additional revenue.

Last fall, lodging properties and the CCCVB considered approving a proposal to raise the city's room tax from 10 percent to 13 percent, but the lodging properties ultimately called it off.

There had been disagreement over how those new funds would have been spent, including marketing for the V&T Railroad and sports tournaments.

Joel Dunn, the recreation operations manager for the city, said the sports tournaments have grown in popularity as well as cost since 2005, from $14,629 to $51,256 last year when the department received $25,000 from the CCCVB.

Meanwhile, Dunn said he's expecting nearly three dozen tournaments to come to Carson City this year, up from 26 in 2010.

CCCVB Board member Terrie McNutt, who also represents the city's lodging properties, said the city's hotel managers still are against any increase in the room tax rate, however, things may change once the board potentially drafts another proposal later this month.