Tybee Island faces having to renourish its beaches within three years, and a councilman wants to raise the municipality’s hotel-motel tax to help pay for it.
Councilman Bill Garbett has asked the city attorney to craft a resolution that would propose raising the hotel-motel tax by two pennies to 8 percent.
The additional funds would be earmarked specifically for beach renourishment and would generate approximately $750,000 annually, according to Garbett.
The resolution is just the first step in the process of upping the tax. Tybee City Council approval would come first, and Garbett intends to put the resolution before the body at the next meeting on Dec. 13. Assuming council votes for it, the resolution would then go to the statehouse for authorization.
Should the legislature sign off on the tax, the city would draft an ordinance that would again go to a City Council vote.
“We’ve set the wheels in motion at this point,” Garbett said. “We have a long way to go.”
The resolution promises to be controversial. While the possible tax increase has been discussed for several months now, Garbett’s request for a resolution took many by surprise.
He called for the document during a Nov. 5 city council workshop, not a meeting. Workshops are open to the public and agendas are posted, but the sessions are held days in advance of regular meetings. Workshops do not attract the same level of public scrutiny as meetings and do not allow for public comment.
Garbett’s approach frustrated several members of the Tybee Island Tourism Council, which discussed the issue Wednesday morning during its monthly meeting. The group includes several lodging operators who have concerns about the impact a tax increase would have on tourism.
“Nobody is against renourishing our beaches, but it would be a lot more efficient if before a city council person goes about this that person get some input from the public and the business community,” said Keith Gay, a council member and operator of Tybee Beach Vacation Rentals.
Council Chairman Amy Gaster, co-owner of another vacation rental operator, Tybee Vacation Rentals, argued many visitors already think Tybee is overpriced. Adding two percent to a hotel bill that is already taxed at a 13 percent rate could be a detriment, she said.
Garbett disagrees.
“If I were in their shoes, I would be concerned too, but I don’t think we’re going to scare many people away from Tybee with two cents on the dollar,” he said. “On the other hand, the potential income is enormous, especially when you consider the alterative, which is to ask the residents to make up the difference.”
Mayor Jason Buelterman, meanwhile, had what he called a “productive” meeting with Gov. Nathan Deal and local state representatives last week regarding the state’s 30 percent stake in the renourishment project, estimated at $4.5 million.
The governor did not commit to a specific dollar amount but did pledge to include funds for Tybee sand in his next two state budget proposals.
Buelterman is urging patience on the bed tax issue. The federal government traditionally chips in millions toward Tybee’s beach renourishment projects through the Water Resources Development Act, and he is “optimistic” Congress will take up that legislation sometime next year.
“We need to figure that out before we put on a tax that we might not necessarily need,” Buelterman said. “Some people say we should divorce ourselves entirely from the feds and fund it ourselves, but we’d have to come up with $2 million a year. We need to know exactly what we’re grappling with here.”
Tybee will be grappling with a more lasting — and more expensive — beach renourishment come 2015. The Army Corps of Engineers recently informed Buelterman the next renourishment will involve enough sand to last nine years instead of seven.
That ups the project’s projected costs from $10 million to $12 million to $14 million to $16 million.