Having collected more than $1 million in municipal accommodation taxes (MAT), Timmins is finalizing how the cash will be used.
Businesses started collecting the four-per-cent municipal accommodation tax May 1, 2019.
It applies to hotels, motels, cottages and other short-term accommodations, including Airbnbs, within the city. It doesn’t apply to campsites and campgrounds, or university and college residences.
In 2019 about $640,000 was collected. In 2020, the projected MAT revenue is about $460,000, according to Timmins CAO Dave Landers.
Of the total MAT money raised, 50 per cent goes to city coffers and 50 per cent will be redistributed back into the community for tourism activities.
The process of how the money is put back into the community is being developed.
The city is looking to partner with the Timmins Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) to be the not-for-profit entity to reinvest the cash.
It's a different direction than what was originally being considered.
Back in 2019, the proposal was to have the Timmins Underground Mining Tour be the organization to allocate the cash. After a legal review, Landers said it became clear using the mining tour wouldn't be practical.
The other obvious choice, he said, is the TEDC, which he noted used to be responsible for tourism. Its mandate also includes tourism objectives.
The MAT Tourism Subcommittee membership would include one person from the Timmins Accommodations Group, Chamber of Commerce staff, TEDC board of directors, Venture Centre, Downtown Timmins BIA. There would also be two non-voting members — the manager of tourism and culture to take the minutes and prepare reports for the TEDC board, and the director of community economic development.
Three out of five members would need to be in favour of a decision in order to recommend it to the TEDC board for approval, according to the terms of reference.
The recommendation was met with some criticism from Coun. Joe Campbell, who questioned how the city is going to deal with its portion of the money.
“The two are tied together. You can’t isolate one and say we don’t have a plan for the one where the money’s staying with the city, but we have this master plan that’s so convoluted on the side for the 50 per cent that’s given to the non-profit entity,” he said.
Landers explained the money goes into the municipal coffers.
“Council has full control of the municipal budget. If council wants to do something with that money, council has to decide to do that,” he said.
Coun. Andrew Marks praised the report and noted one area of concern.
“I think one of the things that the committee will really have to watch initially will be conflicts of interest and/or pecuniary interests because obviously people can go the TEDC and the Venture Centre and other funders and actually have programs through those organizations and then with this we’re really going to have to be prepared for that,” he said.
Coun. Kristin Murray commented on the oversight.
“When we look at accessing grants to organizations, making sure that some of those organizations that are looking to access funding aren’t double-dipping, for lack of a better word. And also just keeping in mind that there might be organizations who are outstanding in terms of loans, taxes, so just making sure that we have some policies in place to safeguard ourselves,” she said.
Now that the report has been presented, Landers said the next step is to finalize a service contract with the TEDC and update the tourism plan.
"These tasks should be accomplished in Q1 of 2021. I expect that the TEDC will publish the application documents and start receiving grant proposals by April," he said.
Read the full draft terms of reference for the MAT subcommittee here.
