Tourism Development Commission - April 15, 2025

Thank you all for coming. Uh the tourism
development commission meeting is taking
place today and uh we have a full
agenda. So if we could start with a roll
call please. Yes madam chair.
Chairperson mineer present. Vice chair
Montgomery absent. Commissioner Kleberg,
present. Commissioner Alspa, present.
Commissioner Thompson, absent.
Commissioner Sobec, present.
Commissioner Marian, absent. Madam
Chair, we have a quorum. Wonderful.
Thank you. Um, I'd like to take this
moment to thank Jeie. This is her last
meeting with us. Um, supposed to be May,
but you're heading out of town, I think.
So, I want to thank you so much for your
leadership here and helping me step up
to the role. And it means so much to me.
And I know there's so many people in the
city that are grateful for your
leadership. So, thank you so much. Ah,
thank you so much, Madam Chair. I really
appreciate it. Um, gosh, thank you very
much, everyone. Um, I I just want to
take a a minute to to thank all of those
that have come before uh the Tourism
Development Commission uh with a
proposal for an event or or anything. um
we welcome you and we are so grateful to
have you come before our board um and um
you know give us the information, give
us insight to your event. Um I'm super
grateful for that. Uh I'm grateful to
staff Steve. Um, I I I'm I remember
sitting in the office in the design
center and having a meeting with you
before all this transpired, just talking
to you, just kind of getting ideas about
where my next uh where I will land
again. Um, and then I want to say thank
you to Sher Henry. Sherry Henry was a
huge supporter uh for me um and a huge
uh proponent for tourism in this city.
She was groundbreaking. She was epic.
She was a woman. She was just wonderful.
So, uh, with that said, I I just want to
thank her direction as well and thank
all of my fellow commissioners on the
tourism development commission as well.
Um, my six years here uh have been just
so much growth. Uh, and for that I am
immensely grateful. Um, and uh, just
never
never give up. So, um, with that, I'll
turn it back over to Madam Chair. Thank
you so much. And Commissioner, on behalf
of staff, we have a token of
appreciation for your leadership here.
Thank you so much. This means so much.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks.
Thank you. And thanks again. You're an
amazing leader.
Um, we're going to go ahead and move on
to the approval of
minutes. Did anyone have any changes?
I move we approve. I'll make a second on
that. All right. All those in favor? I I
I. All right. Moving on to number three.
Monta improvement capital funding
request presentation and commission
discussion and possible recommendation
regarding transferring tourism
development fund savings up to $430,000
from capital project Scottsdale Sports
Complex to fiscal year 2025 2026
proposed capital project Monta
Improvements. The Monta Improvements
project will also be funded with the
Bureau of Reclamation funding of
$400,000 for a project total of
$830,000. Presenting today is Will Loft
of Westworld's general manager. Welcome.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much for
having me. As as you mentioned, I'm Will
Loft. I represent Westworld and I
appreciate you giving me the opportunity
to speak before you today. Um, we're
talking about Monta Renovations, which
Monta is a special event facility on the
campus of uh of Westworld. Um, we are
asking that uh that that you consider uh
uh allocating
$430,000 from the the savings from the
uh recent uh uh Scottdale Sports Complex
uh project PL01 and allocating that to
the Monta Improvement Project. Uh that
along with $400,000 that we've already
um received from the Bureau of
Reclamation will give us a little over
$800,000 towards this project. Uh Montra
is a a 12,000 square foot multi-purpose
facility that's on the campus of
Westworld. Uh it has been in existence
since the early 90s. It has been managed
by third parties since the early 90s and
we just we the city of Scottsdale just
recently took over the management
facility. Um and uh we are looking
forward to uh running the facility for
many years to come but uh we are in the
process of uh of needing some
improvements to the facility as it is uh
in excess of 30 years old. So that's why
we're before you here today. Uh once
renovated, uh Monontto will be a fine
addition to the uh the the portfolio of
of rental assets at uh at Westworld. Uh
currently we have the North Hall, the
Equidome, and the City 10, each of which
are approximately 120,000 square feet.
That along with the South Hall gives us
400,000 square feet of event space. And
with the Montana facility that allows us
a smaller facility that we can do
ancillary events from the that fe that
support these the events at the larger
facilities and also standalone events.
Uh our target market will be holiday
parties, corporate meetings, retreats,
weddings, graduations, anything else
that we can possibly put in there. It's
a beautiful facility and uh it's in a
it's on on a hill overlooks uh overlooks
the area below. So it has a lot of
attributes to it. From the financial
perspective, we expect conservatively to
book approximately 50 events there each
year, which will bring in rental incomes
of
$125,000. We anticipate food and
beverage revenues to be about 100 about
$640,000. Uh we uh we g we received 19%
of all food and beverage revenues as as
our revenues, which would bring in
approximately $120,000. So total we're
looking at quarter of a million dollars
of revenues from this facility uh in in
the initial year. Um the the renovation
assuming it's approved and and and we
receive funding for it will go in two
phases. The first phase will be in the
interior with banquet hall bar area east
and west entries conference room and
mult and multi-use restrooms also
getting a facelift. In addition to that
the support structure of the facility
the roof in the AC also need some work
as well. So that would be in phase one
and phase two would be out air out
outdoor areas, the west patio and the
west entry parking. Phase one is on the
screen there in blue and the fa and the
the second phase is on the screen there
in
orange. So we're in the conceptual uh
phase of this. We're working with the
DWL architects on trying to come up with
the best path to renovate the
facilities, but we're looking for a
neutral, timeless, timeless, flexible
design to create a clean base for guests
to make their own. In other words, we we
want to try to create a facility that
allows whoever is using that to make it
their own so that with lighting and and
decorations, they can they can they can
put the their stamp on the on the
facility. Uh we're looking at uh u new
new new new doors that uh go from floor
to ceiling which would help the lighting
of the facility. Also dim dim dimmable
lighting. Uh we'll also be upgrading the
restrooms and uh pro potentially stained
glass in the bar area. U this right now
is is is what the the uh the uh the
banquet hall looks like. uh with the
with the with the upgrades, we're
anticipating to be looking something
like that. So, it's certainly a much
improved area for uh for events to uh to
call their own. And the bar area, this
is what it currently looks like, and
this is what we this is one of the
concepts that we're considering uh that
uh that would be the final output. Uh
restrooms. Uh this is what they
currently look like, and this is one
concept of what they could look like uh
once the renovation takes place.
be happy to answer any questions that
you might have.
Thank you so much, commissioners. I'll
open it up to questions. So, you
mentioned the food and beverage portion.
Do you have a an exclusive caterer or is
that dependent upon what M culinary does
the uh the food and beverage services at
Westworld? So, they would be they would
be the food and beverage provider at uh
at Montra.
Thank you.
So you had mentioned um phases. So phase
one and phase two. Correct. Are is phase
two going to be another financial ask or
are both of those phases included in
this um dollar amount?
We're we're trying to make it all work
within this ask, but
uh depending upon what what the final
costs come in at will will then
determine what path we take. But
certainly want to get everything in
what's really important to get done in
phase one and then if we have more we
have more resources to apply towards the
project they'll work those towards phase
two. Thank you.
Any other questions?
I will entertain a motion for this
project at whatever level you like.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, I will
certainly support a motion of funding uh
the project at the
$400,000 ask. Um, and I um I motion
that. So, the ask is 430. 430. I beg
your pardon. My my apologies. 430. My
apologies. I I make a motion for
430,000.
I I second that motion. All right. All
those in favor? I I Thank you very much.
Can't wait to come see it.
All right, moving on to number four. Uh,
fiscal year 202526 tourism development
fund budget presentation, commission
discussion, and possible recommendation
regarding the budget. Presenter is Trey
Neiels, budget analyst. Senior senior,
you don't look very senior. Yeah, senior
AP member. Uh, thank you. Yes. Uh,
chair, members of the commission, thank
you for having me today. Um, as you just
introduced, I'll be going over um the
proposed fiscal year 2526 budget. I'm
just giving you some some of the details
of what's going on. I apologize in
advance already. This is I'm a budget
person, so you're going to have to get
out your binoculars to see some of the
finance font and some of the tables and
things that are coming. Um, but uh I
also want to iterate along the way that
um a lot of the pieces as I go through
them kind of build on each other, right?
Forecast into revenues into
expenditures. So along the way if you
have any questions or need um you know
any clarification feel free to try and
flag me down and and I can clarify
there. That way we don't have to
backtrack too much. Awesome. Okay. So
just like I was saying going over the
agenda um first we'll start by kind of
taking a look at the fiscal year 2425
changes in terms of the forecast. Um
when we go through and do forecast
changes we're really focused on um some
of the larger pieces. So, we just want
to highlight some of those larger
forecasts that then end up driving um
the new fiscal year's budget. Um then
we'll move into the budgeted revenues
for fiscal year 2526. Give you an idea
of how we're coming up with those, where
we're at, and some of the pieces that
we'll continue to look at as we move
into the next fiscal year. Um then I'll
highlight the budget requests um that
came through. And then I'll transition
into sort of what's been approved, what
the budgeted expenditures look like um
for fiscal year 2526. And then the last
piece will sort of be these budgeted
transfers um which is sort of an
expenditure piece but it's really a
transfer between funds um or between
capital and operating um that sort of
thing. Um and then lastly I'll just
touch on some items to keep in mind um
as we uh move into next fiscal year some
of the things that we're still thinking
about um and we kind of urge you to sort
of think about um as budgetary issues
come up in the
future. Okay. So starting with the
fiscal year 24-225 forecasted budget um
and some of the notable changes that
have come along um obviously the
starting point for a lot of what we do
with the tourism budget um is really
focused on the bed tax and the
collections that we're seeing. Um and so
as we're seeing preliminary tax receipts
up to this point in the year um we
started to do some forecast adjustments
based on the percentages that we're
seeing. Um the adopted budget had about
$31.5 million um in forecasted revenues.
um since then and based on kind of the
trend we're seeing and taking a prior
three-year average of sort of what the
remainder of the year looks like um we
felt comfortable sort of adjusting that
up to about 33.8 million as our forecast
for the rest of the year. Now obviously
that has implications on all the
different percentage pieces and whatnot
that come after it. Um so that kind of
delves into some of the other pieces on
this list as well. Um but as we're
moving down the list, I wanted to
highlight on this this transfers in this
operating piece. Um this was due to sort
of a a strange um mixture of uh sort of
council actions that occurred um related
to a million dollars that was given um
from the tourism budget to facilities um
to address um the loop 101 uh wall um
painting. Um it ended up that that
million dollars went out the door and
then has been returned. And so you sort
of see this in this transfers in piece.
Um and so it sort of appears as a
revenue, but I just wanted to highlight
um as that shows up um as we look
through financial statements and
whatnot. Um moving on to the
expenditures piece. Um obviously the
biggest piece that's going to shift up
um is the destination marketing contract
at 45% which is paid out based on
actuals. And since we're forecasting the
actuals to be uh higher for the bed tax,
we're going to forecast that up as well.
Um similarly and kind of dropping down
to the bottom with the general fund
transfer 12% sort of the same um
principle happening there. Um and then
you'll see that the the transfers out
for the CIP you can sort of see that
reciprocal piece of the transfers in as
well um and and that million dollar
changing in forecast um sort of
balancing things out. And then I do
wanted to highlight just the net changes
and sources over uses um is a positive
$662,354 right now. Again, that could be
um end up in fund balance or addressing
um budget overages if they were to occur
with council approval on that
appropriation. Um so sales tax
forecasting um sort of moving into
fiscal year 2526 or excuse me um looking
at this year and sort of looking towards
fiscal year 2526. Um we wanted to take a
look at how we're sort of performing so
far this year. Um and just to kind of
give a rough overview, but as we were
going through the beginning of the of
the year, those first four months, um
there was a little bit of uncertainty.
Um you know, typically we budget fairly
conservatively, so you know, we don't
put ourselves in a in a bad position. Um
but you can see by October our
year-to-ate collections were actually
below where we were budgeting um by
about $300,000. And so that kind of
raised some concerns about, you know, um
are the trends that we're seeing not as
positive as we were hoping. Um, but
we've seen in the past couple months
things start to really pick up as we got
into event season. We really saw some
outperformance from from some previous
years so far. Um, and so we've been
encouraged by that and that's sort of
and helping to sort of drive our future
forecast. And so you can see as of
February we were $2 million um roughly
above our budgeted forecast. Um, and in
some of our percentages in terms of the
months, December outperformed by 47%
above what we had budgeted. February
performed 20% above what we had
budgeted. And so that's kind of what
helped us forecast up, but also as we uh
start moving into next year, thinking
about where we should be proposing um
our um bed tax collections. Um and so
again sort of showing a I think this is
about 12 years um here um looking back
from fiscal year 20134 all the way up to
our forecast and then sort of looking at
proposed um you can sort of see the
trend um and you know all the major
events that have that have sort of
happened along the way with you know
responses to traveling from COVID and
and all that's occurred um along the
way. Um but we can sort of start to see
after sort of the the COVID spike um
that we sort of call it. Um we're
starting to see this sort of flattening
just in the trend just sort of looking
broadly at the data. Um and so we as we
sort of took that into mind we really
didn't want to be too aggressive and say
oh yeah you know five years ago we had I
forget how much but you know 50% jumps.
We're not going to do anything too
crazy. We're going to stick you know
largely conservative and sort of stick
with this flattening. Um and then you
know the other pieces that we're
considering on the the economic side,
right? Um and especially recently um
we're just starting to see some changing
consumer sentiment with what's happening
in the the economic markets, the stock
markets, um people's responses, and we
don't know yet how that's sort of going
to translate to tourism and whatnot. So
again, sort of uncertainty there. Um and
there's also, you know, some of the
trends in available rooms, right? Um
we're not seeing, you know, massive
spikes in the number of available um
rooms in Scottsdale. Obviously, we're
not seeing a massive drop off either.
Um, and part of that is, you know, the
trends in short-term rentals as well.
Um, that sort of balances things out.
So, there's no real driver um there to
say yes or no. Um, and then the other
piece, as I was sort of alluding to, was
is the postcoid travel. We really don't
know if that um was sort of a flash in
the pan and people are going to cool off
or if people say, "Well, travel's now a
more important thing to me. I want to
continue doing that in the future." and
are we staying level, are we trending
down, or do we continue the the trend
upward? So, um, a lot of uncertainty on
these pieces. Um, um, and so just to
highlight on the bed tax, we ended up
forecasting um, about $33 million, which
is about a $1.5 million jump over our
adopted, but a little down from our
forecast. Um, and again, a little bit of
that is in efforts to be sort of
conservative um, in in what we're
forecasting. Um but also sort of trying
to recognize the sort of u economic
situation that we're in and and not uh
leading us down a blind path uh too far.
Um also wanted to highlight some of the
smaller revenues real quick that just
can make up a little bit of a
difference. So um on the property rental
side really that's our Princess lease
for the most part. Um we've seen
actually really strong uh performance in
that um in that lease. Um, and again,
um, Princess has expressed interest in
growing the number of units they have,
um, and their, um, their presence as
well. Um, so we felt comfortable sort of
drawing up, um, that proposed, u revenue
amount by about $400,000, um, as we're
seeing, um, those positive
gains. Interest earnings is also an
interesting story. It kind of makes up a
small part and really functions off of
the fund balance that we have in the
tourism um, uh, fund. Um but uh interest
earnings, it's been a little bit tough
to tell um with interest rates lately.
Um but we are starting to see some small
pullback on some of our interest rates
um that are out there. Um again, the
city luckily invests in a lot of
long-term um interest um sort of
securities and things like that. So that
gives us some cushion um there so that
we don't see massive, you know, ups and
downs in that area. But we are starting
to see a pullback and so we've sort of
forecasted about a $100,000 um decrease
in that area. But again, things could
shift throughout the year um and we'll
see where that ends
up. So with that in mind, we kind of
move into the the budget request that
sort of came through um um from uh the
tourism department. Um so in terms of
general fund
requests, the um singular request was
related to the Scottsdale Arts financial
participation agreement and then a
strategic plan for Scottsdale uh arts as
well. And that request was 392 393,000
roughly. Um and what that's really sort
of being is sort of a placeholder um for
that um financial participation
agreement. Um I believe last year we saw
about a two and a half% increase to that
financial participation agreement. Um
that is negotiated I believe in June and
I think that's the plan again this year.
Um and so we don't know for sure what
that amount will be but just to sort of
you know have a number in place. um we
sort of put um roughly
$292,000 there um to sort of lock in um
not lock in, I shouldn't say lock in, um
but kind of um have a placeholder for
that 2 and a.5% increase to um that
financial participation agreement. And
then there's also $100,000 for um a
Scottsdale art strategic plan um which
has been long overdue. Um and um so this
will be to help facilitate multiple
portions of those public outreach and
and whatnot. Um on the Oh, excuse me. I
accidentally wrote transportation fund
instead of tourism fund. It's been a
long budget season. So no transportation
dollars here. Tourism fund dollars. Um
so tourism fund um other commitment
increase of
$738,000 was an additional request. Um
the major bulk of this um is one-time
items specifically um $600,000 uh for
the Scottsdale Museum of the West. This
was directed by council back in uh
December of 2024. Um and it actually
spreads over two years. So $600,000 in
2526, $600,000 in 2627 um was the
direction for that piece. Um, we also
have $75,000 scheduled for entertainment
throughout Oldtown um during tourism
season. That's been an increasing demand
and so um placing in
$75,000 um for that entertainment. And
then uh
$63,000. Um this is also for one-time
sort of um wayfinding and signage um
that would be present in both Oldtown
and uh sort of the civic center plaza
just to help guide tourists but also to
sort of align with um some of the
aesthetics um that are more present here
and and sort of aligning those pieces.
Um also in the tourism fund uh the
internal destination marketing increase
of 4.3 million. Um so the majority of
this is sort of to align with financial
policy 10 um and sort of bringing those
up to speed. Financial policy 10 are
those sort of percentage breakouts the
45% the 5% the um 9% 12% so on. Um and
so this is to sort of bring that um up
to um where we're sort of forecasting
with the
um with the new um transportation or
excuse me transportation um tourism um
bed tax revenues um that we're expecting
to come into play. Um and also just
bringing us back up to speed on a lot of
those pieces. Um but calling out some
specific items. Um
$316,000 is specifically for advertising
and marketing. Um $190,000 is designated
for Westworld marketing currently. Um
$10,000 is designated for Scottsdale
Stadium marketing uh currently. And then
$200,000 is um for regional event
funding requests. And then $75,000 is
for um sort of a Oldtown matching uh
marketing program. Um and then the last
piece, and this is sort of a hold over
from this year because it could occur
this year, could occur next year, but
this is um sort of a change in um sort
technically a staffing increase. It's
moving a position from um our planning
and development um department over to
tourism um to sort of be an OldTown
specialist FTE um to help with some of
the the requests and uh and outreach in
that area. Um again, that's planned to
occur this fiscal year, but um it may
not happen by the end of this fiscal
year. So, we're sort of budgeting that
in um here and in that
change. Uh so, moving ahead, just sort
of trying to look at the bigger picture.
Um, and I should say um on I'll go back
real quick on these budget requests um
through the proposed budget. All of
these have been approved um at this time
um for inclusion in the proposed budget.
Um and that will be what is taken uh
forward at this time. Um but again the
budget expenditure is taking a look at
sort of the the whole um you can sort of
see those increases to the 45% the 5% um
that we expect um in line with um um the
bed tax increases um the administration
of research right you can see the the
the impacts there from um just general
increases to wages um that we're
factoring in cost of living adjustments
those sorts of pieces um and and also um
event retention and development and
other commitments and th that attention
event retention and development other
commitments those are kind of always the
most um broad um areas and so I know you
already need your binoculars but uh just
to sort of break out even further sort
of what's happening here I wanted to
give a little bit more of a a breakdown
of sort of what this looks like broken
out um I won't go into every single
piece but you can see some of those um
one-time pieces that are in there that I
I mentioned earlier um and so on and so
forth. I also want to highlight if
you're trying to do the calculations of
25% that doesn't multiply out um
obviously the 25% um it includes um also
the revenues for um the princess lease
interest earnings anything outside of
the bed tax and then the other
commitments can also be used for um
capital items or transfers out um as
needed. So I will touch on those
transfers out uh right now. So on the
budgeted transfers, this is where we're
really seeing the largest change um from
the adopted fiscal year 2425 to the
proposed 2526. Um a lot of these capital
items are sort of coming off the board.
Um and as you guys just addressed with
the the Monta piece, right, we had some
savings for instance in the Scottsdale
Sports Complex. Now that's kind of
coming off. Um but technically that is
already transferred out to CIP so we
don't really need to do too much more
action to sort of um keep it um going to
the Monta item. Um and then you'll see
um items like McCormick Stillman
Railroad Park, right? That's actually
seeing a decrease of
$150,000. Um the Westworld Barnes is the
only um sort of uh slight increase from
the prior year's uh requested amount. um
debt service remains roughly unchanged
on on some of our MPC bonds. Um and then
in terms of transfers to other funds in
the city um and to support other
operating areas, um a lot of those are
kind of being taken off the board um to
to create a focus on really what
specifically is more of a tourism
drivers um and um and what's sort of
needed. And that's sort of a transition
that's occurring um with new leadership
coming in and and new ideas coming in.
So um you can see some of the the major
changes there um specifically um some of
the operational support for Civic
Center, Scott Stadium, those kind of
coming off the board. Um and then of
course the the 12% uh to general fund
also just being modified to match. But
you'll see in total the transfers out
has decreased by roughly $5 million. Um
which really ends up helping um the
tourism fund balance at the end of the
day and really um sort of reiterates a
point of focusing as much as possible on
direct tourism related items um and
making sure that there's as little
ambiguity there as possible. Um so all
these I'll move in sort of the items to
keep in mind um as we move to the fiscal
year 2526 budget but also with what
we're sort of thinking about right now
right some of these I already kind of
talked about some of the economic
uncertainty and things um I also talked
about the financial participation
agreement right we don't know
necessarily where that's going to come
out and that could change at the end of
the day and then also new capital items
um you know for instance just today
right there's a new capital item on the
board um needs to be addressed right the
funds are already there, but um but sort
of putting that into focus. And then the
other item I kind of want to you know
place here and and just sort of in your
minds is you know a lot of this was sort
of developed uh starting back in October
um and moving through and since October
uh the city's gone through a lot of you
know undulations and changes during that
time right um we've had changes to the
organizational structure changes to
leadership um changes to um elected
leadership as well. So there's new
voices and some some ideas are from
certain periods in time, some ideas are
from, you know, more recent in time. And
so that continued to sort of evolve this
um this budget as we went through. Um
and so I just wanted you to keep that in
mind that we still have new voices.
We'll still have new input um and um and
our budget office's job is to be
responsive to that and accommodate
whoever we need to in order to align
with uh with whatever the the voices
tell us. So, um, I just wanted to sort
of highlight that, uh, along the way.
Um, and so I'll stop here. I know I've
been rambling for a bit. Um, but I'll
open it up for any questions that you
have, um, or anything that I can dive
deeper into. Thank you so much, Trey.
Great presentation. You're very good at
this. So, and I appreciate it because I
get numbers, but it's not not my thing.
So, I appreciate you making it easy to
understand. Um, commissioners, do you
have any questions?
I have a maybe an observation and an
appreciation perhaps. Um, slide six. If
we could just all look at that graph for
a second. Yes. Okay. So,
2019, everybody's giving high fives to
each other on what a great year it was,
and somehow we climb up to where 2022
ended up, which was a major pent up
spike. So, I'm I'm appreciative of your
more conservative budgeting for 25 and
six because you can see the trend isn't
continuing up from 22 onward. So you
said conservative, but it's also a
little bit aggressive compared to the
adopted budget. So there's a lot there
plus all the new stuff coming our way.
So that probably wasn't an easy number
to land on, I'm imagining. Yeah. Chair,
uh, members of the commission. Yeah, it
was definitely a challenge to to sort
of, you know, uh, throw the dart at the
dart board and try and hit the the
center of the bullseye. Um, and you
know, one of the things, you know, as we
sort of move forward, right? I mean,
this was sort of made in a in a vacuum,
trying to move, you know, pretty quick
this year with some changing voices. So,
as we move into future years, I think
something that we really want to start
looking a little bit more at is really
hammering down on even some more um
direct of the variables, right? We tend
to look at the big picture and sort of
try and, you know, follow the trend. But
right we also understand right some of
these years right we had some really big
events come along the way that are
really going to drive tourism in other
years again we always have great events
but slightly slightly less uh you know
drivers and so really sort of hammering
in you know we were able to do that with
you know COVID in general and saying
well let's not hook our you know hook
our wagon to the the COVID trend right
and just say you know up forever um but
really sort of trying to sort of
diminish how impactful that will be and
So maybe in the future we'll start to
look at more of those variables and
really try and figure out where we are.
But yeah, our hope is that our $33
million number will be a little
conservative um but give us some room to
play with and not really underell us and
and not give options to to work with the
funds that are available. Conservatively
aggressive. Yeah, exactly.
Thank you. I noticed a random line item
that just had me curious. Um the STR
program had a incredibly significant
decrease. Do you know what that is? Uh
yeah, the short-term rental program. Let
me move to
uh yeah, the short-term rental program.
So this is a few different um pieces
happening at the same time. And I'll try
and kind of map it out, but um this kind
of is ignited with um the vote on Prop
490, which is the park and preserve tax.
Um with that approved, right, there was
sort of a sh a shift for um for police
um their some of their officers, park
rangers that were funded by um Prop 207,
which are the Smart and Safe Arizona
funds, which are um sort of the
marijuana revenue collections um from
that state proposition a few years back.
Um that proposition says that that money
goes to police and fire but only for
personnel. Nothing, no contractual, no
no commodities, no uniform, nothing just
for personnel. And so at the time um
some of the um park rangers were located
there. They've now been shifted to um
these Prop 490 funds. Um, and then that
basically opened opened up Prop 207 to
say, "Okay, what can that be used for?"
Um, and so some of those short-term um,
rental um, enforcement officers um, sort
of fell into that and are able to be
paid for out of Prop 207
funds, but that still doesn't mean that
all of their commodities are covered.
And so that's why at this point you have
a really weird $8,800 left over. um
because we didn't necessarily know or
what the right place was for um for some
of those commodities yet. And again um
you know just the short-term rental
program and that enforcement of course
does still help u you know tourism and
whatnot but um that might be addressed
in the future. It might be kept as is
but it was kind of this result of you
know a bunch of pieces moving around and
then this is sort of the the end image
we were given on the puzzle. So um I
hope that explains it a little bit. It's
it's complicated. No, I appreciate it. I
just want I'm sure. So, thank you. Any
other questions, commissioners?
All right. So, we are looking for a
recommendation, I believe.
Yes, madam chair, commissioners. If you
if you would prefer to make a
recommendation based on what's presented
here, you can or add comments related as
Trey mentioned. Uh these numbers are
going forward through the process, the
budget commission, city council. So, if
you like to make a recommendation, you
can.
Would we like to make a recommendation?
I'll make a motion on the recommendation
for the uh 2526 budget.
A second. Second. All right. All those
in favor? I I thank you very much. Thank
you. Thank you. Okay. Up next, fiscal
year 202526 city event funding programs
commission update discussion and
possible recommendation regarding the
event funding programs. Steve. Yes,
madam chair, commissioners. Thank you
first of all for all your suggestions
and comments and moving this forward.
This annual process always been very
helpful for us to refine our programs
and make sure we meet our objectives of
putting heads in beds and marketing the
destination. I think uh we've gotten
there once again and will be taken to
city council based on the recommendation
here today by the commission. In your
packet, you receive some red lines, some
additions, some subtractions, and what
we presented in our four programs, the
matching event, community event venue
fee program, and the event development
program. We made changes to make them
more consistent from a contractual
perspective. We added elements that were
brought forward here at the commission.
Um, and I'll go over those highlights
here. We had roughly about five changes.
I'll just cover uh regarding that. Uh,
the first one uh we added a charitable
component to all our applications and
worksheets based on comments from the
commission. Uh, seasonality funding
criteria period is now July uh through
September. We tightened that up a bit
and we kind of brought in Longwoods
related to their seasonality and how we
look at that. So that that we added that
element. Events that have participate or
are participating in the MEI for
community event funding programs are not
eligible to apply for event development
funds, funding program I should say. So
what we're doing there, if you're in one
of those three programs, you cannot make
that jump up to the larger funding
amount in that program. Uh in terms of
events are ineligible, they're
consistently the same, but we did add
expose to the list. Um added that to
that. And the next one came from our
parks department, which is a very good
addition. uh the event venue program
funds will not be dispersed for fields
that are reserved but not used to
capacity as determined by park and recx
department. That was one of their inputs
they provided to us. So based on these
changes in addition we've also included
some information on how many events were
funded in the amount of one impact would
be on the community event funding
program related to seasonality. There
are about eight events who would be
impacted by that particular criteria if
we move forward with that. So, uh, we
are looking for a recommendation to move
these programs forward as presented here
in the redline version.
All right. Thank you so much. I know
everybody's done a ton of work on this.
So, thank you for listening to all the
comments and I think there were some
great additions um, made. So, if we have
any questions or if you'd like to move
forward with a recommendation, I
recommend we adopt the streamlined
effort put forth here. I will second
that motion. And I just want to make a
quick comment with that motion. Thank
you for putting the um support of uh
charitable. Yep. Exactly. Thank you very
very very much, Steve.
All right. So we have a motion in a
second. All those in favor? I I Thank
you guys again. Lot of work.
All right. Steve, don't go anywhere.
Staff reports. Yes. In terms of staff
reports, as we talked about, we're going
to provide information on a quarterly
basis in terms of a presentation, but if
there's any questions related to the
Smith travel report, some of the bad
task collections, we can provide that. I
know you had a lot of budget information
here today, but and the postevent report
as well that was included. We're coming
to the end of our season here. So, we
have a few more events we need to add
that information, but we're getting
close to it. So, if you have any
questions or comment, we can address
those.
Anyone have anything? All right. Just
one other other item staff is looking at
that related to this CoStar Smith travel
report. We're looking at maybe bringing
some of that data down a little bit from
some some of our regional reports we get
from that trying to make it a little bit
more concise, if you will. So, we'll
have more recommendations coming
forward.
All right, we will move on to
commissioners reports. Anybody have
anything to report? I do not. All right.
You say you do or you do not? I do not.
Okay. Um, I attended the Hall of Fame
dinner, um, put on by the chamber and
sat at an amazing table, saw amazing
people, um, get inducted, uh, which was
very exciting. It's an event that that
is very close to me. I used to be a
pretty big part of it, so it was great
to be there. Um, did anybody else attend
anything? All right. Uh, we'll move on
to public comment. Steve, no public
comment. All right. Wonderful.
Identification of future agenda items.
Yes, we're looking forward to scheduling
some items in May and June coming
forward. uh experience Scottsdale will
provide their business plan, strategic
business plan at next month's meeting.
Uh the NCAA final four women's
tournament will be bringing forward in
May as well. The requests for funding
for that. Uh the Fourth of July event
related to our annual funding of that
event will be coming forward and we're
going to get an update on canal
convergence at next month's meeting. So
those are a few items and if you have
any additional ones you'd like to hear,
we can add those.
All right, I think that sounds good.
Anybody have any additions?
All right. Well, I will go ahead and
call for an adjournment. Would someone
like to make a motion at their last
meeting? I would like to make a motion
on the adjournment. Thank you.
I'll second the motion. All right. All
in favor? I I Thank you all for coming.
Everybody. Thanks. And we don't bite if
you sit in the front row.