Richland tourism funding under review, could be awarded on compliance basis

Richland County is reviewing the way it awards hospitality tax money to organizations that are supposed to use the dollars to promote tourism.

There will be an internal audit of the past three years’ use of those funds and a recommendation for a new approach to their distribution, the county announced in a news release late Thursday.

Hospitality tax dollars, which come from the county’s 2 percent sales tax on prepared food and beverages, currently are awarded by County Council through an advocacy-based system. Each council member can lobby other council members to award funding to particular local organizations.

A majority of County Council must approve each award.

The county could now shift to a new distribution process that would require each organization requesting money to prove that it meets a set of standards. County administrator Gerald Seals will present council with proposed guidelines for a compliance-based award process in early January.

In the current financial year, which ends in June 2017, council members have given more than $3.6 million in hospitality tax funding to organizations.

With individual council members lobbying for funding for certain organizations have come questions about possible corruption, Seals alluded in the county’s release.

“Corruption, even the charge of corruption by innuendo, is easy to hurtle; we must be careful about throwing spit balls to see what sticks,” Seals said. “We have to be careful about accusing an individual of corruption when the decision making includes the entire body.”

The internal audit, Seals said, “will reveal whether or not improprieties have been engaged in” with the distribution of hospitality tax dollars.