Forsyth County Commissioner Ted Kaplan has submitted a resolution to repeal the County’s 6 percent occupancy tax. This is part of an ongoing effort by Ted Kaplan to make major changes at the Forsyth County Tourism Development Authority. The TDA is funded by the 6 percent tax and recives from the County roughly 2.6 million which pays for a fairly large staff of fifteen Full Time positions and ten Part-time jobs.

Kaplan has not been shy about the reasoning behind this resolution as he wants major changes at the TDS including changes at the very top. It’s no secret that Kaplan is looking at Bob McCoy, president of Visit Winston-Salem, and wants Bob McCoy gone. Kaplan has not only asked for the source for funding to be cut but a closed session at the next meeting� which by law can only be done to discuss employment issues so it’s obvious he is head hunting.

One can only wonder though if Kaplan is not on the right track. The Benton Convention Center runs around a $600,000 deficient which the county picks up by way of the occupancy tax. With a budget of 2.6 million the TDA loses $600,000 on just one line item, the Convention Center. If the TDA was successful in promoting "Visit Winston-Salem" would there be operating loss at the Convention Center?

Of course the Mayor of Winston-Salem, Democrat Allen Joines, is against any change in the occupancy tax however not for the sake of the TDA or Bob McCoy’s job but as a source of cash as he has been quoted as saying, ""I think it’s just a great concern to me as mayor that the community stands to lose several million of dollars of revenue." I guess the definition of revenue, "the gross income returned by an investment", to Mayor Joines means you invest 2.4 million to lose $600,000.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 8:02 am and is filed under Business News, Triad News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.