Garden City Mayor's Report

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

GARDEN CITY June 8, 2017.  Mayor Spuhler reported talking with the Commissioners earlier in the day.  He noted that Garden City creates about 97 percent of all TRT (Transient Room Tax) taxes collected in the County.  These taxes are sent to the state and are returned to the County.  The County then takes the percentage determined for law enforcement and the percentage for some of the other emergency organizations and gives them these funds.  The rest of the money is to be spent on tourism projects.  Each city in the county is asked to write a grant to gain access to their share of the TRT monies.  A board was formed about ten years ago.  They are the individuals who read the grants requesting money and make the determination of who gets the money and how much.

Mayor Spuhler noted that $295,000 TRT monies were collected by Garden City this past year.  Garden City was given $25,000 for their grant which is about the same as all of the other cities in the County.  The Mayor, in looking further into the matter, determined that there was $125,000 TRT money in the County general fund for the Sheriff.  That leaves a balance of $113,000 in the TRT Account.  Mayor Spuhler noted that there will be as much money collected this coming summer as last summer, thus he felt the balance in the account was really high and thought it should be used before the TRT tax is added to the account this fall.  Also, even though Garden City collects the major portion of the funds, the $25,000 was about 7 percent of the amount brought in.

Mayor Spuhler requested that perhaps the TRT Board be changed a bit to give more individuals an opportunity to serve on that board and make decisions about the TRT tax funds.  He had a list of individuals he thought would make a good change.  He listed George Peart, Ty Tenne, Mike Mouldenhauer, Gary McKee, Paul Abray, Nate Perry, Nate Smoot, Kylie Hodges, and Robert Peterson.  The Commissioners noted that they would think about updating the board.  They defended how the funds are currently being shared and said they would look further into this matter.