Aldermen question funding for St. Charles convention bureau

St. Charles aldermen peppered representatives of the Greater St. Charles Convention and Visitors Bureau with unconventional questions Monday night. At issue was the economic return the city sees for the $526,000 of funding it provides the bureau.

The 2016-17 budget calls for about $1.8 million in hotel tax income. That's the same pool of cash that funds the city's contribution to the bureau. But Lula Cassidy, the bureau's new executive director, argued her organizations true economic impact to the city will be about $19 million in the next budget year.

That forecast is based on a calculation of the number of hotel rooms the bureau can take direct credit for booking. The $19 million factors in the cost of the rooms, plus meals and other local spending by the people who stay in those rooms. About $6 million of that total is related to the city's annual Scarecrow Fest. Those totals seemed "a little overcalculated" to Alderman Rita Payleitner. She asked multiple questions about how bureau calculated that $19 million economic impact.

"It seems like it's a lot of money," Payleitner said. "I can see where you can justify it, but I'm still kind of fuzzy on it."

For example, Payleitner zeroed in on the idea that people traveling to the area to participate in local sporting events spend an about $450 a day. In her experience as a parent with a daughter in softball, she said there was "no way" her own spending was anywhere near that amount.

Cassidy could not provide the full background behind the calculations. She said some of the estimates are based on a 2006 study of tourism spending in the Fox Valley.

"It's certainly a different environment we're in from 2006," Payleitner argued. "When I'm looking at our return on investment, I see it as costing us $229 a room (based on 2,297 rooms booked by the bureau). That does not seem like a good investment to me."

But Cassidy said with some of the recent economic turnaround, it's likely the bureau is underestimating its economic impact in some tourism segments. She promised to deliver a full accounting of how the bureau calculated its economic impact in two weeks, when aldermen are expected to take a final vote on the $526,000 of funding for the agency.

Payleitner was the only aldermen who voted "no" on the funding in the preliminary approval by the council Monday night.