Como town government should be in a good position to rise to Representative Lataisha Jackson’s challenge to formulate a plan to show how tourism tax funds will be spent.

The town currently has almost $130,000 on hand from taxes collected from the sale of prepared food, beverage and lodging since the tax was enacted in 2010. The enabling legislation that authorized the tax expired without being renewed this year. Rep. Jackson visited the Nov. 12 meeting of the town’s board of mayor and aldermen and asked for a plan for the money’s use so that she can justify — to the business owners who collect it, to their customers who pay the tax and to her fellow legislators and other officials in state government — introducing a bill in the 2014 legislative session reauthorizing the tourism tax .

That’s a reasonable request. There has been discussion among town officials since 2010 about an oversight committee to plan use of tourism tax money, but the committee has never materialized. Instead, there have been a few piecemeal expenditures, one of which was a lawn mower for municipal grass cutting.

That lawn mower may have become something of a red herring conversation among townspeople. Its purchase was a legitimate use of tourism money, went the rationale for its approval, because Como does not want visitors forming their first impression of the town from overgrown right-of-way and other public property. If there are objections to the lawn mower purchase, they should only be that purchase of the lawn mower was not part of a larger, long range plan for use of tourism tax dollars.

Use of tourism tax dollars to pay for police protection along Como’s Main Street — its primary tourism venue — could also have been a legal use of the funds, but the town clerk anticipated such a bookkeeping tangle in keeping tourism and regular police accounts separate, that the idea was scrapped.

Use of tourism tax money to repair and overhaul the crumbling sidewalks along Main Street has also been discussed but never adopted. That’s a viable use of the money that provides a long term improvement for both residents and visitors.

And so on.

The good news is that most of the money collected to date is still in the bank and available.
The town clerk has now been in her job for over a year, providing an overview of municipal finances. At the same time, Como has bought new accounting software to streamline budgeting and to track revenue and expenses.

Town officials, frustrated by long delays from its accountant, have also selected a new accountant who promises to have annual compilations up-to-date by year’s end. Further, the town has also hired a financial consultant who should be helpful in formulating the long range plan for tourism tax use.

As of the Nov. 12 meeting — the same meeting where Rep. Jackson asked for help from Como to support the tourism tax reauthorization — all of the players appear to have been put into place to develop a well-thought-out long-range plan for use of tourism tax dollars. We look forward to that plan and with it community support for the tourism tax’s renewal in 2014 by the Legislature.