The Bay of Quinte Regional Marketing Board has made financial requests to the City of Quinte West regarding its partnership.
During a delegation at Wednesday’s council meeting, Executive Director Dug Stevenson presented an update to council on the past fiscal year for the board from April 2022 to March 2023.
Stevenson presented some of the accomplishments of the board during the fiscal year including use of digital media and marketing to promote tourism to the area.
Also presented were the next steps heading into 2023-2024 including more regional marketing, updating the website design, drafting a new 2023-24 business plan and budget, and beginning discussions related to the implementation of the Short-Term Accommodation and Municipal Accommodation tax.
Finally, the financial requests were made at the end of presentation.
The requests include an update to the census data used for receiving the per-capita finances from 2016 to 2021.
Currently, the Bay of Quinte Regional Board receives $1.55 per capita under the 2016 census. Under the request for the 2021 census data, the per capita dollar figure would remain the same but the number of people as part of the per capita would increase.
This would mean under the financial request, the board would receive $72,168 yearly.
“We won’t be looking for an increase to this per capita (dollar) amount throughout the entire duration of this term of council,” Stevenson said. “So this is the amount that we’re looking for for next year, the year after, the year after that – no requests for an increase.”
Other requests made by the board include 50% of the yearly Municipal Accommodation Tax as a Not-for-Profit entity with a mandate of promoting tourism.
An extension of the partnership with the added budgetary items was also requested with an additional fifth year being asked.
Stevenson explained why the board wanted the additional fifth year as part of the partnership.
“The idea there is to give the next council some time to learn about our organization, to see what we are and what we do, before making a decision about funding,” Stevenson explained to council.
“Which also would provide stability to our organization, to our staff and ultimately to our regional partnership so that we have time to plan appropriately.”
Mayor Jim Harrison asked the city clerk to bring back information for a resolution on the matter at the next council meeting.
