Business Community Government

Committee reworks funding recommendations for lodging tax grants

The Gig Harbor Lodging Tax Advisory Committee revisited its funding allocations following what appeared to be a final decision on Sept. 3.

Earlier this month, committee members recommended distributing a majority of the funds to the Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce, which handles the city’s tourism marketing work. Other organizations seeking funding were to receive lesser portions of the lodging tax pie.

City Councilmember Ben Coronado, who chairs the committee, said in a Sept. 21 meeting that committee members had received “additional information” and that there were “questions still boiling over,” both of which were worth addressing through revisiting funding recommendations.

Committee members weighed their previous recommendations and recommended a redistribution of funds.

Under the revised recommendations, every organization other than the Chamber of Commerce would receive less money than under the earlier plan.

Funding reconsiderations

State law requires local jurisdictions to use revenues from lodging taxes to stimulate tourism.

The law governing lodging taxes also mandates that a committee recommend how revenues are spent. The committee must include an elected city official and representatives from both businesses that collect the tax and organizations eligible to receive tax revenue.

Gig Harbor’s LTAC panel includes Chamber President and CEO Miriam Battson; Harbor WildWatch Executive Director Lindsay Stover; Harbor History Museum Executive Director Stephanie Lile; and Clare Dunis, executive director of the Gig Harbor Downtown Waterfront Alliance.

Representing businesses that pay the tax are Best Western Wesley Inn & Suites owner and operator Sue Braaten; Maritime Inn co-owner Jannae Mitton; Wells Fargo manager Kara Sandvik; and Patsy Irwin, who manages the Waterfront Inn.

In 2023, Gig Harbor chose to contract with the Chamber of Commerce to do its tourism marketing work, rather than employing a city staff member to do it. In 2024, the city and the chamber shared marketing responsibilities, with the chamber receiving a little more than $275,000 for that work; in 2025, the chamber received $500,000 to entirely handle marketing and tourism work.

New distributions

Committee members voted to shift about $60,000 to the Chamber of Commerce. Lile and Stover volunteered to give up a portion of their funding, and the committee agreed to bring the Downtown Waterfront Alliance’s funding down to $70,000.

The committee also voted to dip into lodging tax reserves to fund the chamber and other organizations. This brought the chamber’s total funding to $442,000.

The chamber originally requested $520,000 of the available $530,000 in lodging tax revenue. On Sept. 3, the committee recommended that it receive $379,400.

The Permission To Start Dreaming Foundation and the Gig Harbor BoatShop took the heaviest recommended cuts, losing $15,000 and $14,313, respectively, from the Sept. 3 recommendations.

The committee recommended that the Permission To Start Dreaming Foundation, the Gig Harbor Film Festival and the Gig Harbor Canoe & Kayak Racing Team each receive $5,000.

A questions of optics

Councilmember Ben Coronado noted that the organizations receiving the most funding had representatives in the room.

He pointed out that the Permission to Start Dreaming Foundation, which the committee recommended receive $5,000 of its requested $45,000, is “getting 11% of their ask.” PTSD does not have a representative on the committee. “That’s a pretty big discrepancy, in my opinion.”

Even organizations that received relatively large blocs of LTAC funding will feel strapped.  Harbor History Museum is in line to receive $40,000, which Lile said is “significantly less than what we have had this year, and it will make an impact. But the money is the money.”

Sandvik worried that continuing to whittle down the funding local organizations like the Film Festival receive will hurt Gig Harbor in the long run.

“I kind of get concerned … The reason that people come here is because it has all of these things, and so it’s reasonable to support tourism” through lodging tax funds, she said. “I’m [also] thinking it’s reasonable [for funding] to come out of the city. I don’t want Gig Harbor to turn into a Port Orchard, but if we keep on doing this kind of stuff, it will turn exactly into a Port Orchard where there’s no reason to be there.”

The city council could take up the recommendations as early as its next study session on Oct. 1.