MAHONING COUNTY Visitors bureau sues auditor over revenues from bed tax



The bureau says it is owed money for three months.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Youngstown/Mahoning County Convention and Visitors Bureau has made good on its threat to sue Auditor George Tablack over bed tax revenue.
The bureau filed a lawsuit this week in the Ohio Supreme Court asking that Tablack be forced to hand over tax money from last summer.
County Prosecutor Paul Gains said he'll file a motion in opposition to the bureau's lawsuit and ask that it be dismissed. By law, the prosecutor is legal counsel for elected officials.
"We felt like we have waited long enough to get this money," said Atty. Lawrence Richards, visitors bureau president. "That's why we went ahead and filed the lawsuit."
The county assesses a 3 percent tax on all hotel and motel rooms that are rented in the county. In the past, that money was given to the visitors bureau, an agency that was formed by commissioners in 1986 to promote travel and tourism in the county. The tax brings in about $450,000 a year.
Commissioners stop payment
On Oct. 9, commissioners voted to stop giving that money to the visitors bureau. Instead, 2 percent goes toward operation of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and 1 percent goes to a new visitors bureau made up mostly of county officials.
The visitors bureau says that it hasn't received a check since August 2003 and that the county is holding revenue collected in July, August, September and the first eight days of October. There is usually about a 2 1/2-month delay between the time the tax is collected from hotels and when it is paid to the bureau.
Tablack has resisted paying because he says the resolution commissioners passed in October is contradictory.
One paragraph says the auditor "shall transfer the September 2003 collections of the lodging excise tax dollars" to the visitors bureau, and that it shall be the last such conveyance of money to the bureau. The next paragraph directs the county administrator to "begin the process of recovering all unencumbered and not obligated public funds" previously been transferred to the bureau.
Tablack said the visitors bureau's lawsuit includes the paragraph in which he's instructed to pay out the money, but does not include the next paragraph in which the administrator is instructed to get it back.
"I find that very curious," he said.
Seeking amendment
The auditor said he's sending a letter to commissioners asking that they amend the resolution to eliminate the contradiction.
"I need to know what is the intention of the commissioners," Tablack said. "On one hand they are telling me to send the money out and in the next paragraph they're telling someone else to go get it back."
Gains has recommended that Tablack pay the money to the bureau since it was collected before commissioners stripped it of the funding source. Tablack said he's going to wait and see whether commissioners amend the resolution.
If Tablack eventually pays the money, the lawsuit would be dismissed as moot, Richards said.
bjackson@vindy.com