Dunnuck: Policy for tourist tax money is fair

But county officials hope their plan to set up a consistent framework to manage tourist tax money will put an end to the strife.

The new version of the policy, released Nov. 25 by county Public Services Administrator John Dunnuck, strikes what he said is a fair balance between beach renourishment needs and the growing need to improve public beach access.

The tourist tax policy will be considered by the Collier County Commission at its Dec. 2 meeting.

"We have had no policy in place, and you could argue that all of the money before was for beach renourishment," Dunnuck said. "This policy makes the pot smaller for beach renourishment, forces cost- sharing initiatives for projects that don't meet public access criteria, and still keeps prioritization of projects in the hands of advisory boards. It ensures that we have money budgeted for all the needs and also enables the county to meet its comprehensive land-use plan goals."

Private beaches such as Hideaway Beach on Marco Island, where most beachfront lots are privately owned by condominium and single-family homeowners, still will be able to qualify for beach renourishment grants using tourist tax money under the new policy proposal, Dunnuck said.

The tourist development tax is a 3 percent levy on overnight hotel stays and temporary rentals. Originally approved by county voters by a 2-1 margin in November 1992 for beach renourishment and tourist promotions, the tax raises from $6 million to $6.5 million annually.

The new policy requires the county Tourist Development Council (TDC) to budget $2 million per year for public beach access projects that include land acquisition.

The policy directs that the remaining $4 million to $4.5 million of annual tourist tax revenues pay for beach renourishment projects. The two-page policy also requires the annual allocation of $1 million for reserves to pay for future beach renourishment projects. And it requires that a catastrophe renourishment fund be set up to cover potential major storm damage to area beaches.

The catastrophe renourishment fund would be created with a $2 million allocation of tourist tax money in fiscal 2004, and it would be replenished with an annual $500,000 allocation until the reserve hits $10 million, Dunnuck said.

The new policy includes a specific funding provision for the catastrophe reserve, a needed reserve recognized three years ago by Jim Mudd, then county utilities administrator, who recommended that the County Commission begin setting aside money for such emergencies.

"This provision is just making sure that an exact amount of tourist money is earmarked for the catastrophe renourishment reserve," Dunnuck said. "Everyone agrees we need to do it.

This just says how it can be done and with how much money."

The $2 million annual allocation for beach access improvements also has been long overdue, Dunnuck said. A county amendment to the tourist tax ordinance in 1997, which added land acquisition for beach parks as a legitimate project for tourist money eligibility, resulted in recognition of a growing need for improved beach access as the local population and tourist traffic increased.

By 2003, the need for beach access improvements had become so great that county officials saw the need to ensure that more tourist tax money was spent to meet county comprehensive land-use goals, Dunnuck said.

In May, the County Commission asked the Coastal Advisory Committee (CAC) to revise a county version of the tourist tax policy. The county's initial version scared local municipal officials and private landowners when it shifted priority of tourist tax projects from renourishment to public beach access.

The May version also added strict eligibility requirements for obtaining tourist grants for renourishment projects.

Those scary provisions -- including one that required that a project location must have public beach access points with at least 100 public parking spaces and on-site restroom facilities -- were all deleted from the new policy proposal, Dunnuck said, along with the stated shift toward beach access over renourishment.

The policy proposal includes two main eligibility requirements for top priority status, and both of those requirements were included in the CAC version: "An eligible beach area has at least one public access point from a public street or is no more than one-half mile from a beach park facility, public access point, hotel, motel or is a vital tourism area subject to abnormal erosion."

Also deleted from the existing policy are the percentage requirements for renourishment project costs to be shared with private landowners or local governments. There's no more exact provision in the proposed policy, for example, that says private landowners would have to pay 70 percent of the costs of a renourishment project on their land. But that doesn't mean cost-sharing has been eliminated from the policy; in fact, it is encouraged, Dunnuck said.

"All this policy really does is give the advisory boards the framework for managing tourist tax money, making appropriations on projects according to existing balances and forecasted reserves," Dunnuck said. "It allows the boards to set priorities for funding, and just makes sure that public beach access has a higher priority."

Hideaway landowners meet part of the criteria for top priority funding because Hideaway Beach adjoins Tigertail Beach Park -- a county-operated public facility, Dunnuck said. The more likely scenario is that Hideaway residents would be asked to contribute a portion of the money to renourish their beach, Dunnuck said. That portion would be determined by the CAC and reviewed by the TDC. But it's slightly feasible that a Hideaway project could get 100 percent funding if it came forward when tourist tax coffers were healthy and no higher-priority project was pending, Dunnuck said.

Under the new policy, the CAC no longer would review tourist grants for public beach access projects that include land acquisition, Dunnuck said.

That responsibility would go to the county's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.

The CAC would continue to review requests for tourist grants to pay for beach renourishment projects. The coastal committee and parks and recreation committee would report their recommendations to the TDC, which makes final recommendations to the County Commission.

"This policy doesn't prioritize beach renourishment over improving public beach access, or vice versa," he said. "This really just sets up a workable framework that's been so badly needed for these advisory boards and the County Commission to work from."