The Mitchell County Board of Commissioners during its regular meeting on Monday, June 6 unanimously backed a resolution in support of a House bill that allows the county to increase its total occupancy tax to 6%.
The revision repeals the current occupancy tax ordinance which went into effect in 1987. County Manager Allen Cook said it’s time for a change.
“It’s outdated,” Cook said. “Since 1987, a lot has changed as far as rentals and the whole landscape.”
The revision allows the county to levy an additional 3% occupancy tax on top of the 3% already being levied, pushing the total to 6%. The funds must be dispersed on a quarterly basis and used for tourism-related purposes by a Tourism Development Authority, which now must be established.
Cook said the county previously collected the funds and the Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce directed those funds.
“The chamber directs those funds,” Cook said. “Where they’re directed and how the pots of money go, I do not know.”
That responsibility will now fall to a TDA board, which Cook said will be established with some specific requirements in terms of who sits on it. The tourism-related spending requirement, he added, has some leeway.
Cook said it’s a key move that brings in outside money.
“This is not a local person, for the most part, paying the tax,” he said. “It’s bringing in outside money into our county’s coffers.”
Commissioner Matthew “Vern” Grindstaff, who has sat on four different commissioner boards, echoed that sentiment and said raising the occupancy tax has been a hot-button issue during his entire tenure.
“From year one, this has been a conversation topic,” Grindstaff said. “It’s been a conversation topic around the idea that Mitchell County is leaving money on the table.”
The rubber began hitting the road on a change when North Carolina Rep. Dudley Greene recently met with county officials and presented the idea of them backing the bill, paving the way for an increased occupancy tax.
Avery County is working toward it, too.
The move brings Mitchell County’s occupancy tax more in line with the state’s occupancy tax.
“I think this is a good road to Mitchell County having more at our disposal to do more with,” Grindstaff continued. “In a time and period when so many people are looking for rural places to go, this could benefit the citizens of Mitchell County.”