VT DIGGER
Thousands attend the women’s World Cup ski event last fall in Killington. File photo by Andrew Kutches/VTDigger
The municipal spending plan includes a $100,000 line item to help offset the costs to Killington Resort if it hosts the FIS Women’s World Cup race again this year.
A separate ballot item would eliminate the local 1 percent sales tax starting next year — a move that is seen as another big financial boost for the resort. The tax relief would replace funding support for the event in the town budget in subsequent years.
The resort hosted the World Cup in late November over the Thanksgiving Day weekend, drawing about 30,000 spectators over two days of racing.
It marked the return of World Cup ski racing to New England after a 25-year absence and the first such competition in Vermont in 38 years.
“It was an awesome event. Everyone loved it, and everybody keeps asking are we bringing it back,” Mike Solimano, the resort’s CEO and president, said last week.
“We’re still working on that,” he said. “One of the challenges, of course, is that it is a really expensive event to put on, even netting out all the other revenue sources.”
A World Cup venue, he said, is required to provide the food and lodging for the skiers and their coaches. The host site also must cover other expenses, such as the infrastructure and security and the cost to keep the snow surface up to standards.
In addition, the venue puts up the prize money, which last year totaled $260,000.
Altogether, Solimano said, the cost to the resort for last year’s event was more than $2.5 million, which was offset by revenue that came in, most of it from sponsors. The net cost to the resort was $1.2 million, he said.
Solimano said the resort is not looking to make a profit. He said he is working to bring the cost down to make it a sustainable annual event.
That’s what prompted his request for funding to the Selectboard earlier this year. He added that he also is seeking additional sponsors and support from the business community.
The Selectboard agreed to put $100,000 in the budget, which would be used only if Killington is selected again to host a World Cup event.
Killington hasn’t heard yet from the federation that selects sites whether the resort will host the race again this year. However, last year’s event drew such record crowds for women’s World Cup skiing that officials say a strong case was made to return.
“They basically said to us, ‘We really want to do it again there,’” Solimano said. “We haven’t officially locked it in, but preliminary discussions are, if we can pull it off and we want to do, they want to do it here again.”
He hopes to hear a decision within the next month.
Killington Selectboard Chair Patty McGrath said the numbers made economic sense to include the $100,000 for the World Cup in the budget.
The board, she said, compared the revenue that came in from the town’s local option tax on sales, rooms, meals and alcoholic beverages from the previous year during the same quarter as the World Cup last year.
That comparison, she said, showed a $65,000 bump in revenue over the previous year.
Based on the tax money that came in, she said, that translates to an additional $10 million in revenue coming into the community of Killington compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
“Not all of it came from World Cup, but a lot of it did,” she said. “The ramification it has, it’s not only the $10 million extra we make at the time, it’s how it builds the town of Killington’s brand and the resort’s brand over the years.”
And with the debt payments on the municipal golf course dropping by $160,000, she said, the board agreed to budget the $100,000 for the World Cup.
“We’re investing in the event, and not the resort,” she said. “If they don’t have that event, we don’t pay the $100,000.”
A separate ballot item would eliminate the sales tax portion of the option tax. Killington, the resort president said, generates a great deal of the total sales tax revenue that comes in, and lift tickets are a major driver.
Over time the amount of money coming to the town from the option tax has grown to almost $900,000 a year, McGrath said. About 45 percent that money, she said, comes in from the rooms, meals and alcoholic beverages portion of the option tax, with the sales tax bringing in about 55 percent.
Residents will vote on the proposal to eliminate the sales tax portion of the local option tax on Town Meeting Day. With money already in the proposed budget for the World Cup event, the change would not go into effect until July 1, 2018.
The total proposed town budget is just under $4.51 million, which is up $353,166. About $300,000 of that increase, McGrath said, comes from greater investment in the town’s capital plan, funding such items as upgrades to town infrastructure and equipment.
The estimated tax rate, not including the school portion, would be about 36 cents per $100 of assessed property value, up roughly 3 cents.
Also on the ballot, incumbent Selectboard member Ken Lee faces a challenge from resident Jim Haff. In addition, voters will decide whether to do away with Australian balloting and move to a traditional floor meeting for town matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment