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The Mariposa County 2006 Budget
Part Two
 

On Thursday morning and early afternoon the Board considered the Tourism Budget as newly appointed Interim Tourism Coordinator, Leroy Radanovich gave a presentation to the Supervisors and a full house of interested parties on how he cut $300,000 from the tourism budget as directed by the board.

He stated that the Occupancy Tax (TOT) was about $8.7 Million for this year. That figure he stated was 4-1 greater than any neighboring county to Mariposa.

Spokespersons for the industry stated that actual occupancy was down 5-6% this year and the TOT showed only a slight increase from last year due to raising of room rates. Also that park visitation numbers were actually down for the year according to their figures.

Mr. Radanovich was able to come up with the $300,000 savings by:
Not having a State Fair Booth next year saving the county about $9,000. He stated that 90% of the fair patrons said they use Highway 120 to reach Yosemite. Also that 22 counties decided not to participate in the fair this year.

He also recommends that the Tourism Bureau be turned into a non-profit as 90% of California Counties do. Thus saving the county a position of Tourism Director at a saving of at least $60,000 a year with benefits included in that figure.

Leroy also cut the Professional  services budget by $156,839 and the Promotional budget by $74,161.
Also in the cuts were $2,000 from Training and Seminars and $5,000 from the Travel-Trade shows budget.





































 		   The Tourism Area Committee ( Tac) agreed with Mr. Radanovich on making the Tourism Bureau a non- profit but strongly rejected the budget cuts in the Promotional and Professional Services Line.
Already they said in the current years budget that $150,000 had been cut from the Promotional line.
They said there is heavy competition for the tourism dollar around the United States and they need the money for advertising. They said the money that comes into Mariposa is more than just the TOT as people buy food, gas, gifts and more in the county.
Yosemite once had 4.5 million visitors in the past but now gets by on about 3.5 million visits a year.
Everyone would like to see those higher numbers return to Yosemite.

Kevin Shelton from the Yosemte Management Group also reminded the board that "Staying in Mariposa County is a choice"

When all the smoke cleared, the board agreed to go ahead with making  the Tourism Bureau private and also restored the original amount to the Promotional Line, thus giving the Tourism Budget back $50,000.

The Rural Media line was given $5,000 after much debate. With this change a total of $55,000 was changed in the budget for the upcoming year.
These figures are still open to debate as they work on assembling the final budget.

We feel that with the amount of money that comes in to the county from just the TOT that the full amount of money should have been put back in the Tourism Budget as Mariposa County gets more in the TOT than it does in property tax by about 2-1. The more people that come and visit Yosemite and Mariposa County the more money that will be available in the budget for next year.

Meanwhile our running list of raises continues:
Ag Commissioner: Raise 16.35% = $15,000 -$16,000
with benefits.

District Attorney: Raise 11.40% =  $12,000 - $13,000
with benefits.

Assessor: Raise 11.47% =               $11,000 - $12,000
with benefits.

Total so far, in this lean budget:       $38,000 - $41,000

The above numbers are recommended numbers and can be changed either up or down.
Let your Supervisor know how you feel about these raises !
Oh, yeah, the roads are proposed to be cut  $300,000

Update: 9-28-2006  The above mentioned raises are already in effect as they were negotiated last year in the fall. The first past of the raise came before 2006 started and the second half of the raise came in June of 2006 so the budget just shows the effect of the raise compared to what the county paid out at the beginning of 2005.
These raises and others that department heads received were given to them after a comparative study was done with other similar size counties to bring them up to parity.

Watch the Sierra Sun Times for further info on these raises



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