Committee wise to delay spending

Baker County’s Economic Development Committee (EDC) was wise to deny, at least temporarily, a request for $18,000 to study the efficacy of the “Base Camp Baker” marketing campaign.

That request came from the Transient Lodging Tax Committee (TLTC). That group receives 75 percent of the money collected through a tax on motel rooms, bed-and-breakfasts and RV parks. The EDC receives the remaining 25 percent.

The TLTC has already voted to spend $55,000 of its share to hire a company to study Base Camp Baker.

But the total cost is estimated at $73,000, hence the TLTC’s request to the EDC for $18,000.

EDC member Fred Warner Jr., who’s also chairman of the County Board of Commissioners, gave a convincing explanation for why the TLTC’s $18,000 request is ill-timed.

That request represents about 35 percent of the money the EDC will have to dole out for economic development during the fiscal year that started on July 1.

“My concern is that September is not too far along into the budget year,” Warner said during the recent EDC meeting at which the committee tabled the $18,000 request until March. “We don’t know what might be coming along.”

What we hope is coming along are businesses interested in moving to Baker County, or current businesses that would like to expand.

It would be a pity, though, if any of those businesses needed seed money but the EDC, having tapped its meager budget to pay for the Base Camp Baker study, had little or none to give.

We don’t mean to imply that the TLTC’s proposed Base Camp Baker study would be a waste of money.

Ensuring that the marketing campaign actually lures visitors to the county is a worthy goal. Tourism, after all, is part of economic development, too.

If the TLTC wants to spend lodging taxes to find out how to bring more tourists to Baker County, well, that’s the purpose of that board.

But spending one-third of the money set aside for economic development, on a tourism marketing study, is not the kind of investment we think the EDC should make when the TLTC is already planning to spend $55,000 toward that goal.

The TLTC should either negotiate for a less-detailed, but less-expensive, study, or look elsewhere for the $18,000, or, as the EDC suggests, wait until March.

If the TLTC still believes then that it needs $18,000, the EDC, with four months left in the fiscal year, can at least more accurately judge the pros and cons of spending the money.

Frankly, we hope that by March the EDC will have doled out most or all of its share of lodging taxes to non-tourism related business, and that the recipients are busy distributing paychecks to newly hired employees.