With about $100,000 a year to work with, Flin Flon city council will use revenue from its hotel tax to support community events and beautification.
Coun. Karen MacKinnon made the announcement Wednesday, almost one year to the day council enacted the levy.
“We’re going to put that money to good use,” she said.
MacKinnon said $30,000 from the tax revenue is earmarked to support events that promote the community.
This could include the Friendship Centre’s National Aboriginal Day celebrations or regional meets hosted by groups such as the Border Explorers Snowmobile Club, she said.
With the remaining $70,000, council will “look at things like beautification,” MacKinnon said, citing initiatives such as the summertime flowers that line Main Street.
One new idea, far from finalized, is to pool resources with grant funding to beautify Main Street storefronts.
Once the weather improves, MacKinnon said she and Coun. Colleen McKee will drive through Flin Flon to examine what improvements could be made.
McKee said the intent is to look at Flin Flon through “a fresh pair of eyes” to consider projects that are needed and affordable.
“We always want to make our community more appealing,” she said, adding, however, that the available dollars won’t “go very far.”
Coun. Tim Babcock noted that when the city enacted the hotel tax on Feb. 1, 2014, it did not know how much revenue to expect.
Indeed the city’s best guess before the tax took effect was that it would yield $15,000 to $20,000 a year, far less than the approximately $100,000 realized this past year.
The levy places a five per cent tax on every night spent at Flin Flon’s two hotels and one motel.
Other Manitoba municipalities mandate accommodation taxes both above and below Flin Flon’s five per cent. Others charge a flat rate rather than one that is percentage-based.
In an interview last year, Victoria Inn manager David Brooks said he would take a wait-and-see approach to the tax.
“I mean, most people are used to paying [a hotel] tax in Manitoba,” he said. “We were one of the last cities in Manitoba to adopt this tax.”
Council approved final reading of the tax in September 2013, but due to provincial law, it also required the blessing of the provincial cabinet.
When cabinet granted its approval as expected, the Victoria Inn, Royal Hotel and Oreland Motel were told to begin collecting the tax.
