{"id":6044,"date":"2020-01-24T21:23:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T02:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=6044"},"modified":"2020-01-24T21:23:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-25T02:23:29","slug":"the-ledc-wants-a-2-hospitality-tax-for-the-city-of-lakeland-is-the-ledc-nuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2020\/01\/24\/the-ledc-wants-a-2-hospitality-tax-for-the-city-of-lakeland-is-the-ledc-nuts\/","title":{"rendered":"The LEDC wants a 2% hospitality tax for the City of Lakeland, is the LEDC nuts?????"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TAXES, TAXES, and More TAXES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s right 2% tax. The hospitality tax on prepared meals + beverages within city limits that was suggested to City Commissioners by the\u00a0Lakeland Economic Development Council<\/a>\u00a0(LEDC). The LEDC presented a list of potential revenue sources to pursue in 2020 in order to fund various community development projects. Implementing a hospitality tax is an idea pulled from Greenville, S.C., which generates over $10 million a year for the city, and could bring in $15 million a year to Lakeland if implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland residents could find a new tax tacked onto their\nrestaurant bills if city commissioners support the idea of levying a\nhospitality tax to support future growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Scruggs, president of the Lakeland Economic Development Council, presented a list of potential revenue sources for city commissioners to pursue in 2020 in order to fund various community development projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to develop new sources of revenue if we want to\ntake it to the next level,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission and city staff have frequently discussed\nfinding ways to drum up additional funds after agreeing in August 2019 to\nfreeze Lakeland Regional Health\u2019s lease payments \u2014 a source of $14.3\nmillion in revenue each year \u2014 and serious concerns about funding local transit\nimprovements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While former Commissioner Justin Troller believed a city-owned\nbroadband utility could become a future revenue source, the idea has received a\nlukewarm reception and the commission has otherwise come up empty-handed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top among Scrugg\u2019s money-producing ideas was for Lakeland to petition Florida legislators for the right to implement a hospitality tax. It would place a 2% fee on all prepared meals and beverages, including alcoholic drinks, beer, and wine sold within city limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept was modeled on a similar tax implemented\nby Greenville, South Carolina, in 2001<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat tax generated over $10 million a year for the City of\nGreenville, it\u2019s up to about 11 or 12 [million],\u201d Scruggs said. \u201cIf that tax\nwas put in Lakeland, we figured it would be $15 million a year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scruggs pointed out the estimated revenue roughly matches\nthe monetary support the city receives annually from the hospital lease. With the\nlease scheduled to expire in 2040, it could be one option for replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe would have to talk to other cities about it and get them\non board,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s take this to the session and let\u2019s get it passed so\nwe can do it in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LEDC members are also suggesting the city address areas where it\u2019s losing funds, according to Scruggs, particularly\u00a0Cleveland Heights Golf Course.\u00a0It needed a more than $1.1 million subsidy to stay afloat in 2019 and is predicted to need further support in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to deal with this issue,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could pick\nup a couple of million per year and use it for something else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LEDC suggested commissioners consider hiring private\ncontractors to operate the public golf course and possibly the RP Funding\nCenter, which receives $3.5 million a year from the city to operate. The golf\ncourse could also be turned into a public park that costs less to maintain,\naccording to Scruggs, or its land used for a housing development that would\nproduce property taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scruggs said the LEDC also wants the city to give more\nthought to Lake Mirror\u2019s development, as it owns 60% of the waterfront.\nSuggestions included selling Lakeland Electric\u2019s administrative offices to a\nprivate company to bring it back on the city\u2019s tax roll and possibly relocating\nLakeland Fire Department Station No. 1, which sits on the lake\u2019s northeast\ncorner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These revenue-producing ideas from LEDC members were aimed\nat giving the city additional funds to move forward on a number of community\ndevelopment projects. Top among their list was seeing commercial air\nservice brought to Lakeland Linder International Airport, construction of Lakeland\nPolice Department parking garage and the proposed highline, or\nelevated walkway, along Lake Mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One recommendation for new city developments suggested by LEDC was improving downtown corridors to be more pedestrian and bike-friendly. Scruggs said one thought was to eliminate all street-side parking from Kentucky Avenue to extend the sidewalks, allowing for more outside dining along the street that\u2019s home to many restaurants and eateries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love a lot of these recommendations,\u201d Mayor Bill Mutz\nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scruggs emphasized LEDC\u2019s extensive list of proposed\nprojects and possible revenue sources were just that, suggestions, for 2020 or\nfuture years. He\u2019s hopeful to see action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not telling you which ones to pick, I\u2019m just saying\npick some and we\u2019ll get behind you and we\u2019ll do it together,\u201d Scruggs said. \u201cDo\nthe right thing, pick some projects and let\u2019s make this city great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TAXES, TAXES, and More TAXES That\u2019s right 2% tax. The hospitality tax on prepared meals + beverages within city limits that was suggested to City Commissioners by the\u00a0Lakeland Economic Development… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"42","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ledc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}