Starkville Board of Aldermen are back at the drawing board in finding funding for the construction of a conference center after a proposed penny raise in the tourism tax was shot down in the state Senate last week.The tax, which would have risen from nine percent to 10 percent, never made it out of committee. The tax increase was to have went towards funding a conference center around the Cooley Center property on the edge of the Mississippi State campus.
District 16 senator Bennie Turner, who brought the proposal before the Senate, said members of the committee felt that the issue needed more research before the raise could be reconsidered.
“The chairman over the subcommittee felt that the tax was being applied to issues that originally had not been intended in the authorization,” Turner said. “He wanted further study that it was being properly used.”
Veranda owner Jay Yates, who is also the president of the Golden Triangle Restaurant Association, said the majority of restaurant and hotel owners in Starkville opposed the tax.
“Basically what happened is the restaurant community was unaware this was being proposed, and it just came up on everyone,” Yates said. “We found out about it, and we wished we would have known it was getting proposed because it came as such a big shock to all the restaurant and hotel owners.”
Ward 5 Alderman Matt Cox said he felt there were two key areas of concern for both the state legislature and Starkville restaurant owners.
“There was a perception an additional penny tax would have kept people away from the restaurants, and that was the thought when the original tax was passed. That was the first concern,” Cox said. “Secondly because a conference center in this area would have been a public investment, some thought it would have spurred new private developments. That would be increased competition.”
Yates and the rest of the Golden Triangle Restaurant Association were instrumental in bringing forth the problems of the tax to the state legislature.
“I just wanted to call a meeting to see how the community felt about it, and pretty much everyone was against it, not just me,” Yates said. “At that point, it was letting the people in the legislature know that we were against it, as well as the community.”
Cox said he felt that the advantages of the conference center outweighed the downfalls of the raise in the tax.
“You have to look at the broader picture of what you bring into the community or what you lose from the community,” Cox said. “Conference centers have greater public benefit than initial profit benefit. They benefit the community and enable us to have even more shopping options and things like that.”
Yates said the current state of the economy added to the concerns of increasing any sort of tax.
“It’s just a bad time to be taxing people more. The economy is not great, and people are worried about that,” Yates said. “As far as restaurants go, we don’t want to raise our prices because of that.”
Samantha Wilcutt, a manager at The Veranda, said the tax would have had a negative effect on the restaurant industry as well as customers.
“We’re already at a 9 percent tax. One more percent takes money out of our pocket and puts it into something that doesn’t involve us,” she said.
Cox said the construction of a conference center is essential to the Starkville and MSU communities, and the Board of Aldermen will continue to find new ways to fund the project.
“This was just one funding mechanism, and because we believe these are things we need in the community, we’ll move forward with other financing options and with more discussion on it,” Cox said.
Turner said he plans to continue to aid the aldermen with the project as well.
“I’m sure that this getting shot down will have a negative effect, but hopefully we’ll be able to get something done on it in the future,” he said.