Arts community to see less hotel/motel revenue

CEDAR RAPIDS - In his first month in office a year ago, Mayor Ron Corbett met with members of the cultural arts community to tell them to look for less revenue from the city's 7-percent hotel/motel tax than they had grown to expect.

Last year's word of warning looks like it really will come true come July 1, when the new fiscal year begins.

In his budget presentation to the City Council this week, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said he anticipates providing $331,700 less - or 41 percent - to three of the four categories of hotel/motel revenue recipients. Those categories - community cultural and education organizations, community recreation and events, and new and emerging organizations and events - consist of 27 entities that now share about $800,000 of the annual $2.5 million pot of hotel/motel revenue.

Terry Pitts, executive director of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, on Thursday said the museum has heard that it should expect only $20,000 from hotel/motel funds to help with its operation, down about $34,000 from the current budget year.

“A loss of $34,000 from hotel/motel funding next fiscal year is going to have us examining more cuts in hours and staff,” said Pitts, who said a larger budget-cutting effort at the museum already has meant reductions in staff hours and museum hours. “There is nothing else to cut, I'm afraid.”

Pomeranz emphasized this week that money from cuts would not be going to help the city pay off debt it's taking on for the Convention Complex project. That was Corbett's thought a year ago.

Instead, the city will direct money to a first category of recipients, the largest of which historically have been the Cedar Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau and the city-owned U.S. Cellular Center and Paramount Theatre.

In the current budget year, the bureau is receiving $673,400 and the center and theater, $331,000, or about 40 percent of the total.

Category 1 money also goes to pay off debt on The History Center, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, the Paramount Theatre and the city's Ice Arena.