Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the LTAC meeting for the city of Olympia for September 22. How are y'all?

Good. Also good.

Let's do a quick round of introductions for the record, and then we'll get done with the business we need to do so we can get to the meet and have Amelia talk to us about the process in front of us. Does that sound good?

Sure.

So I'm Jim Cooper from the city council, and I'll go to the folks in the room.

Terry Thorning with Olympic Flight Museum and the Olympic Air Show.

Greg Taylor, Doubletree Olympia.

And city staff, Amelia Layton, program specialist. Awesome. Yeah. And we have a guest.

I don't know if you can

see me.

I can I can see their hand?

Yeah.

Hi. I'm Shelly Nicholson. I'm we I put an application in with the city of Lacey, but I'm also on the LTAC board for the city of Yelm. And we were talking about moving to a rubric system, so I just wanna kinda learn more about how you guys your process.

Oh, wonderful. Thanks for tuning in. Well, thanks for showing up in person. That's awesome. Okay. So then, the first thing we need to do is approve our agenda for today. I assume you both have a copy. And if you agree, give me a thumbs up or if you wanna make a change. You wanna be formal? I'll take a motion to approve. But

We've got one from Greg here.

I'll second.

Okay. The motion and the second, any amendments? All in favor,

aye. Aye.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Great. Thank you. And then the next order of business is the minutes from way back in November because we haven't had a meeting since then. So if there's unless there's any questions, I need a motion to approve. And it's okay if you weren't there, you vote wanna vote on it still.

I'll move to approve.

Would please me to second it. Okay. We have a

motion and a second. Any amendments or discussion? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. So that's the agenda and the minutes. Let me just check and see if Shelley wants to make any public comment since I think

they were the only No.

I did mine. I really just wanna learn. Okay.

Great. And I don't see any online. Right? Mean, I just

No online.

Okay. So that, anything in email that we should know about?

I didn't receive any. We may for our next meeting. So Okay. We'll be prepared for that.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I'm a hotelier, hotelier. Terry's representing an event. Isn't there a fourth event?

Kelly Campbell from Experience Olympian Beyond. Sorry. Sorry. She's the second event, and she will be debriefed next Monday.

Gotcha. Got it. Perfect.

Awesome. Assuming there's no announcements, so we can just go on to the business item at hand, which is to have Amelia talk us through the review process, and the applications that we will have in front of us before our next meeting.

Perfect. Thank you, Jim. I'm gonna share a screen here and get us back to the beginning and do that. And there we go. Okay. Let me close. Make you a little smaller in the room, Jim. And then here we go. Alright. So this was our I continue to say this every year, our biggest funding year.

So we saw 39 applications. For those of you, listening to this recording or new in the room, we see an average of 20 to 25. So this is a big year. 15% of those applications were music events, 23% of those were community festivals, 21 of those were sporting events, and 18% of those were Olympia tourist destinations. Then there's a bucket that sort of doesn't fit into any of those perfect categories.

So that's not a full round number, just so you know. There were two 10 new applicants who have never requested lodging tax funding from us before, And the total ask this year was $1,773,828, which is quite a lot. Mhmm.

What do we think the projected haul will be?

This will be our projected haul. So our 2026 budget that we're looking at, our estimated revenue is 625,000. Estimated in our reserve on January 1 is 1,170,000. Previously encumbered, so we have some three year contracts that 2026 will be the last year of. That's for lodging tax administration and then the visitor convention bureau, Experience Olympia and Beyond, and that is 234,300.

Working with our finance team, their recommended amount to hold in reserve is 370,000, leaving us with 1,190,700 to potentially award out, which, remember the ask, gives us, a difference of about $600,000 that we can't fund. So I say all this to just remind you as you start to read these applications to be hypercritical of that. You already are great at that, but it's a bigger difference than we've ever seen before.

Well, then if they're going off of historic, we've had 25% of our rooms out since May, and we'll probably through the rest of the year. So Yeah. Well, we're selling everything we can sell. Yeah. We're down.

Yeah. Exactly. So there's there's other factors, obviously, that come into play that you're welcome to bring to the table as you're discussing just economic factors that

are going on in the

country and stuff and locally.

I have a question. Yeah. The previously encumbered Mhmm. Three contracts for two thirty four Two contracts. Or two contracts. You say they're ending in 2026. And those are both expected to be renewed in through 2027?

In some capacity. Yes. Yeah. So they they will apply again. They will. And we have the potential to make another three year contract with both of those.

Okay. And tell me again what those two were, admin and

Admin d? Admin support and the visitor convention bureau. Yeah. And the admin support is, my part of my role. Mhmm. This cost for using Submittable and the cost of placer.ai, which is, up in the air at this moment. So the the request for that next year that you come that you see, may be a little lower, because the VCB also now uses Placer, so we can request data through them. And so we wouldn't need to duplicate efforts potentially.

Okay. So as I recall, the admin, portion of that was not huge. It was, like, 55,000.

55,000. Is that right? I think this year, it's 58 because we built in some growth for Okay. Me.

So negligible to the 234. So the rest of that is VCB. Mhmm. Are they also an applicant?

So they were an applicant, and we gave them a three year contract. So they will be an applicant again next year.

'27.

In '27. But they're not for '26. Yeah. Because we gave them

a three year contract. Because of the three year. Okay. Now I gotcha.

Yeah. Okay. So great questions. Any other questions, Jim?

My questions are around Greg's comment. Like, when when did we kinda cut off for the amount that you're showing us we have available? And it I think it would be smart to know if heads and beds are down since then. Because I because I think one of my questions for the committee is, should we do a one time, you know, extra expense and and go down that much more through this reserve? Or if we know that we're down, maybe we shouldn't go that far through that reserve so that we can make sure there's money for the events next year.

I can look into some of that data and be prepared for our funding discussion and just see what is trending. The I will say our estimated revenue for 2025, so the year we're currently in, was 675,000. So the projected income is already down with that.

Okay.

So I think we are forecasting a slower year ahead. Okay.

Cool. Yeah. And I think I'd be open to anybody's thoughts about that today to inform that for that funding meeting so that we I mean, I want Amelia and I to bring you a recommendation to react to and think about not whether we're spending it all or not in that.

Mhmm. I

have another question about the reserve. Mhmm. Legally, we have to hold is it 10% of the revenue each year? So there's not a legal

there it's a it's not finance would prefer and not have a heart attack and get mad at us if we keep 20% in. 20%.

3 70 sounds like quite a lot. Mhmm. Certainly not enough to to, you know, to to help with this difference we're looking at. But is it feasible that we could tap into that just briefly?

It's a it's a little I rounded up for that, so I can give you the exact number that you could tap into, but then it would be going really close to that holding 20% of our anticipated contracts. Okay.

So that But that's more than half.

The $3.70?

Yeah.

So it's it's actually so it's looking at our it's looking at, the 1,190,000 number. Yeah. Got it. That we could potentially contract out with. That's where that number comes from.

And if we just wanted to take our pain early and we adhere to that standard of 20%, it just becomes baked into what we

do. Exactly.

It keeps us from ever having a year where it's just murdered.

Or we have a year where we say, oh, I'm sorry. There's no income to, like, actually give you your full contracted amount. Mhmm. Yeah.

So Or we have a year like 2020 where because we were sitting on an extra million or 2, we were able to fund some theaters that might not have been able to open their doors again in a pandemic. Right?

Exactly. So Now that's I

don't think we need to save for that because we you know, the city will figure that out if we need to. But

And knock on wood, we don't have another pandemic that closes everybody's doors. But there are economic factors at play that are worth considering for sure.

Sure. Yeah. I prefer conservative.

Okay. Yeah. So does our finance team. So they appreciate conservative as Jim knows. Okay. So that's the the higher level of what we're looking at, and you'll see details because I'm gonna release all the applications for you. So we're using Submittable again. Some of you have used this before, and it's great. Thank you all for joining the team. That helps my end.

So you've already accepted the applications. You're already in Submittable, so I can skip that side. So once you're in Submittable, you can go in and look at applications through the email. You'll get email notifications that say you have these assignments, ready to go, or you can just sign in to your Submittable account. Go to the team, City of Olympia.

That's the the step I skipped on.

Step that might be hard for some of you because you're sitting there looking find it right away. At a dashboard thinking, I these are all the applications I've made. Yeah. So then you go to the team account, and then you will see a dashboard, which I'll have a bigger screenshot of, that shows you all the applications that are in your queue to review, and then you will start the review process. And so that dashboard looks like this.

You'll click on the submission title, and you can start the review. You'll see your name here instead of mine, and you'll click in, and that has the review rubric, in it. It's nice. You can toggle back and forth. You can pull this line over so you can see half and half screen while you're reading the application and doing the review.

And I wanna remind us of our funding goals because as you're insubmittable, we are trying to create overnight stays by tourists and lodging establishments within the city of Olympia, promote Olympia and or events, activities, and places in the city of Olympia to potential tourists from outside of Thurston County, specifically 50 plus miles away. We wanna see some results in economic benefit to Olympia. We wanna also, we're happy to fund, provide, maintain, operate, or enhance city owned tourism facilities or infrastructure. So you'll see some of those as always.

All of which agree with the ordinance.

Those are pretty much pulled right from the ordinance. So this year, our scoring criteria, each application is has a total of a 110 points that they could potentially earn. And we're looking at that the project or event plan is clear and the proposal reflects enough detail to effectively determine the potential to to result in overnight stays by tourists in the lodging establishments within the city of Olympia. You can score that out of 20. You'll give me a number.

There's no kinda gray area there. The project demonstrates potential for overnight stays in Olympia. These are equal to room nights, and so what they're showing equals some points. If you have concerns about what they're showing, feel free to make notes of that. The proposal should demonstrate that the organization is working in partnership with organizations and local businesses.

15 points there if they are or or not. This project lends itself to the complement of other events in the community and helps create a diversity of opportunity. So arts, culture, recreation, education, historical significance, that's 10 possible points. The event proposal defines additional revenue benefits beyond overnight stays, likely diners, shoppers, paid parking, etcetera. That's 10 points possible.

And then you get a little five points if it occurs in nondemand periods or the shoulder season. And then there's the innovation bonus that we've kept of if the applicant has applied in previous years, which as you know, we have some very long standing LTAC funded programs. How does the applicant demonstrate how the funds will be used to adapt or grow what they what they're doing? Or how does the project represent an unusual approach or move the lodging tax funding program in an exciting new direction? So those are some bonuses that organizations could get for their funding. Quick question.

Yeah. How much has this scoring process changed from last year when we did this?

So it's a little bit more one to one. So last year, it was very much a little more you could use your judgment on

what subjective.

A little more subjective. Thank you, Jim. That's the perfect word. A little more subjective. And this this aligns closer with other, jurisdiction I'm having a hard time talking today. Other municipalities, lodging tax, where it is sort of a one to one point basis. Okay. And so getting to the core of heads and beds, tours from 50 miles or more, and economic benefits of the meeting.

In previous years, there was also with the scoring data on the right, there was a comment box.

There's a comment box here. And I can once we get through this, I can pull up Submittable and show you the form if you'd like to take that.

Seems to me last year, the comment box was removed.

Each

each score has a comment box.

Comment box.

Okay. And this one has a a big comment box. And one thing else that because I saw that we need to cut at least $600,000, each app each review has your comment box. You can make all those notes of concerns or excitement. I mean, if you're really excited about something, let us know. And then a a little checkbox of you to choose, like, yes, fund this. Fund this if if funds are available and wouldn't recommend funding that. And it's all that part is anonymous, so don't be afraid to be a bit ruthless if you need to be because that is that helps Jim and I make a funding recommendation to start our discussion with you all next time

we meet. It's anonymous, but you guys see who

We see it, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say it out loud to the to the world. But does that information become public when we're having our discussion? All your scores become public without your names attached to them. So someone they will know that someone sat and reviewed and scored it this way, but they won't know that it was you. Okay. It becomes anonymous user number one, two, three, four, five. Okay. Yeah.

So five points in innovation because it's exciting still seems a bit subjective, but I'm completely fine

with that. It's those those are a little subjective because and based on what you know about the event, like, is it really changing, or is it kind of a plug and play event?

So we had one that applied last year. It was on a family farm. They were gonna do a music festival, And I hate estimates of room nights. Yeah. I to me, it's that's a zero. Yeah. So if you haven't done the work to make partners with hotels or things like that.

Yeah. So that's where they might actually not get 20 points in the demonstrated room night Mhmm. Bucket. But because you sort of think, well, it's a good it, like, has a potential to be a good event, and you could give them a bonus five points for an unusual approach. So they still might not score in the, like, yeah. Let's fund this. No question bucket. They might we might see where it falls. And who knows how it's gonna fall this year because it is so competitive.

Well, yeah, 10 new applicants. New projects. Are they just new applicants or they need projects?

I mean, Yeah.

Because new projects are not going to have solid tourism data from which to draw for this. And some of

them are long standing projects but new to Olympia funding, so they might have some data. Okay. Their locations might be an important thing to look at as well, though, and you'll see that when you get there. So

Okay. So that so my question is is, like, if people have like, on the room night points

Mhmm.

If people have said one thing in an application in the past and we know the actual number, do we have a spreadsheet we can go and see how far off people's predictions have been over time?

Doesn't it show up in your final report? It does show up in your final report, so I can gather all those final reports from previously funded organizations, and have that ready to go for the discussion. Yeah.

Okay. Because I think for me, it's like how how not being in this field, like, do I really know if they're telling the truth? And they either ask for a report from you or VCB and they use those numbers or they may, you know, grab something out of thin air.

Exactly. And, what I've been encouraging applicants to do is if they do have that report from me or or VCB to include it as an attachment in their application. So you might see some of that, but I they if they've if they've gotten lodging tax funding in in at least one previous year, they will have had to turn in their report with their actuals that then I give to JLARC. And so I can pull that information so we can have it handy as well.

Okay. And I would just say if there's anyone if there's applicants that are way off in their projection versus reality, if there's a way for you to tell us that, that would be good.

Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. And like like you're mentioning with new applicants, some of it is a shot in the dark.

I get that. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I think we always wanna have space for that new innovation. Right?

Exactly.

So in years past when I was on the committee, we had some bona fide events that drew in room nights who could not fill in an application to save their lives.

Yeah.

So for me and my history, those would go to the bottom of producing room nights because we knew they produced room nights, but we might fund other people first or entirely Mhmm. Before we went there just because it's a pretty straightforward process. Give us this information. And if you can't do that, it just seems

awkward. I mean, that is a really valid point. And to that point, I I have been available the whole time the application has been open to help support folks with the writing of their applications if they need to since I don't score it. And so if it does come down to that, they've missed a few opportunities for support in that regard. And I'm happy to help them next year if they're out there listening to this.

Yeah. I'm glad I'm not the only one, Greg.

Yeah. This helps my ruthless meter go up.

Yeah. Right.

And I'm encouraging your ruthless meters to be on point this year because of the the large ask. So our timeline for you've been added to the team. Right after this meeting, I am going to send you the applications. You'll receive an email. If you don't with by the end of the day today, then that means it probably landed in your junk, and please check there.

And if not, holler at me, and we'll make sure we have the right contact information for you. They are due, ideally, Friday, October 10. That gives me time to look at all your scores and sort of see where things lie and start to work with Jim to make sort of a a base funding recommendation that we can start that discussion with so that our meeting on the fifteenth doesn't need to be eight hours long. We can start there. Can I make one other comment? Absolutely.

Because I know we're looking at Olympia. Mhmm. But I also look at you had a line in there about Thurston County. Mhmm. There are certain events, the air show Absolutely. One. I don't care if you ever send a room night to my hotel. If you bring people, it's gonna compress the market, and I'm gonna do just fine. I don't mind being the last to fill at

all. Yeah.

So as we read them, Terry's event is huge for the county. Yeah. Probably broader than the county. And I get room nights from her, but maybe not as many as hotels that are closer.

Mhmm.

But I I would recognize how much events outside of what is necessarily Olympia can impact us.

Yeah.

Just a comment.

It's a very valid comment, and it will be more valid when you see the the panel of applications. There's there's quite a bit of people

Okay.

Looking at in and outside of Olympia. So yeah.

Well, there's only one place I can have an air show. Yeah. I can't do it in the Sears parking lot. You know, it won't work.

Olympia is on the name in the air.

That's right. Olympia is on the name. There you go.

Well, I think that's the key for regional events is that it's actually coming from outside the county. Right? Like, that 50 mile thing is the key and not whether it's the hotel next to the event or

not. Exactly. Right.

Oops. Too far. There we go. So that is my presentation, but I'm here for questions from the committee. Otherwise, I will send you applications, you can get forward.

I just have one question. Yeah. You didn't state that it did, so I'm assuming my the answer to my question is no. But did any of the lodging tax funding, get applied to the FIFA FAMZON request?

Not no one applied for it. So, no.

So there were no FIFA fan zone applications, but the bigger picture the bigger question there is that did the city of Olympia fund FIFA's request for the county? And I think it was, like, $375,000.

I don't know all the details, but not through the lodging tax fund. And as far as I know, it's in kind services.

Yeah. The the I'll make sure we have real numbers at the meeting so I can answer that. But, essentially, all of the jurisdictions were like, we can't afford those numbers, go back to the drawing board, and the new numbers that the city manager told me were more in more tolerable, and we could use in kind to help pay for those things. Like, if we're providing police, we don't need it to come out of lodging tax. You know? So I I I need to find out what what our actual direct cash contribution will be, and I think it got small enough to come from another source, but I'll verify that.

Okay. Okay. Thank you, councilman. I was just worried about that because I

No. I asked Amelia the same question this morning.

Faced with that same issue. Our LTAC award amount is not very big. Absolutely. And what they were asking for was just outrageous.

Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. You you won't see an application for use of LTAC funding. But, like like we said, we can have that information for you at that meeting just because it is a curiosity in the in the world right now. Yeah.

Do you guys have any applicants that were just for the two hundred and fiftieth year of America? We did in Yale. No. And so we that's why we went into our, like, reserves to use it. And I was just like, oh, I wonder if you guys have any

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

Not that I saw. It was

like a a onetime event, you know, kind of thing. Interesting.

Fourth of July party. Right? Yeah.

That's what it is. Yeah. No July party in the park. We didn't see that. And it was through the city.

Cool. Interesting.

Alright.

Yeah. Sunwater could ask for all of us for money for their celebration. Cool.

Well, that's what I have. If you guys feel good

Yeah. Appreciate the meeting.

I'll send you off to do the work.

Yeah. And I'll just say if there's anything that comes up in your ranking process, shoot Amelia a note right away because it might be something that other people are having trouble with, and she might need to you know, she she might be able to troubleshoot the system to change something to make it easier.

So Yeah. If there's any problems technically with using Submittable or anything, I am available for help.

Okay. And your meeting presentation notes, will those I'm looking at the match that page is all matched.

I can I can send it as an email, and then it'll also be in the meeting minutes for next time? But I'll send it as an email after this so you have it.

Good. I was gonna ask that too.

Yeah. That'd be great.

Great. So look for the submittable notification that everything's in there Mhmm. And get every we all all of us will get everything done by the end of the day on the tenth. And if we need more time, we will let Amelia know

Yeah.

By the morning of the tenth.

I will make one recommendation. My being online for hours at a time with these reading these applications is really quite straining. Yeah.

Yes.

And I dedicated to five a day. Okay. And that was what how just I that's just what worked for me because after five, my eyes were crossed.

Totally. I encourage that as well.

And then sometimes if I only did four, I had to do six the following day. Not good. So if you stay on it, you'll get through them, but it is a very lengthy reading process. Yeah.

And there's 39 ish.

And there's 30 Oh my goodness. Okay.

That's eight days. Five. Yeah.

That's eight. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, if

one of you figures out how to have Copilot or GPT do it for you, let me know. No.

We need your actual brains.

I actually read them, and I read financials too. And I read all all the extra stuff they send with marketing and every I read it all. Yeah.

And I Jokes aside, like, those softwares wouldn't be able to do that because there's so many pieces. Right? Like and we can actually do that in our head.

Or we can't do the heart factor where you're like, hey. I may not have to be heads and vets for that, but I know others do. And this area wouldn't be the same without it. Makes sense.

Yep. Yeah. Very cool.

Well AI doesn't have a heart. Right.

Thank goodness. That's really

Thank you. Okay.

Alright. Anything else for the good of the order?

Nope.

Okay. We're adjourned. Good hat, Greg.

Thanks, y'all.

Thank you.

See you in person for that next meeting. In the building, it'll be on the 2nd Floor.

Yes. And Amelia's gonna let the applicants know about that meeting so they can do public comment if they'd like to.

Yep. Yep.

Alright. Take care.

Thank you. Well,

thank you, Raul.

That is you guys have so much