“Missing lodging tax payments found”

Posted: 27 Jul 2010 11:22 PM PDT

YORK — For months, the county commissioners and the York County Visitors Bureau have had a weird feeling. The local hotels and campgrounds have been as busy as usual, but the lodging tax receipts have been way down.

"Something's just not right," Commissioner Chairman Gus Brown said two weeks ago.

Bob Sautter, the executive director of the York County Visitors Bureau (YCVB), said the same thing.

"Everyone says business has been good, but we're just not seeing the influx (of lodging tax funds) that we used to," Sautter said earlier. "It makes you wonder if something's not right."

So they decided to ask for some help at the state level — requesting the Nebraska Department of Revenue to check whether York County's receipts have been actually correct.

This week, the answers came — and in York County's favor.

"Apparently, there was a coding error of some sort and the funds were allocated to Lancaster County, instead of York County," says Sally Ruben, YCVB chairman. "Yes, there was definitely a mistake."

And it was an expensive mistake. Worth $122,000.

"The error was confirmed this morning (by state officials)," Sautter told the county commissioners. "We still don't know exactly how it happened."

Brown said the wrong reporting had probably been going on some 22 months.

"We believe it could have been something as simple as coding," Ruben said again, noting that would have happened at the state level. "We just kept saying the receipts weren't right."

"At least, now we know," Sautter said. "I was talking with my counterpart in Norfolk, and we normally have a considerable higher amount in receipts than they do. But they were even $20,000 ahead of us, so I knew something was wrong. It bothered me that we were consistently down when other counties along the interstate were up or staying the same. It's nice to know what happened."

The amount is substantial, considering total annual receipts have been in the $125,000 to $140,000 range.

Now that the accounting error has been found, the $122,000 will be returned to York County, where it will be placed in the two accounts that support tourism and promotional efforts for this area (with a little more than $61,000 going into each).

York County lodging tax facts

• Hotels, campgrounds collect a local four percent tax

• Two percent goes to county's visitor improvement fund

• Two percent goes to county's visitor promotional fund

• Taxes are paid by visitors to the county

• Intention is to promote tourism, bring more money to county's economy

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