“We couldn’t be able to proceed forward with hiring an executive director if we did not have the ability to provide adequate compensation,” he said.
Montgomery County commissioners approved the funds Tuesday for the Montgomery County Convention Facilities Authority (CFA), which was formed last November. The CFA has been meeting since May toward a plan to revive the facility, which needs expensive repairs and has struggled financially for years even before the coronavirus pandemic.
The authority has narrowed its search for a new executive director down to two candidates with an expectation one will be offered the job later this month, Reynolds said.
The two finalists are Pamela Plageman, president and COO of PLP Hospitality Solutions LLC in Hebron, Ky., and Timothy Seeberg, general manager and director of Fort Smith Convention Center and Arc Best Performing Arts Center, Fort Smith, Ark., according to Shannon Martin, a Dayton attorney advising the CFA.
“Obviously, getting an executive director in place to help support the organization is a threshold task to a lot of the other tasks,” Martin said during the CFA’s October meeting last week.
The job posting for the executive director’s position carried a salary range of $106,000 to $143,000 annually.
Reynolds said the county’s funding is a “very important first step” that allows the board to function financially until it begins receiving lodging tax revenue.
The Montgomery County Convention Facilities Authority is an 11-member board formed between the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, which approved the creation of the CFA and authorized it to collect an additional 3% in lodging taxes in an effort to keep the convention center afloat.
“One of the things on the horizon, in addition to the funding from the county, is to consider adoption and policies around the hotel levy that CFAs are permitted to levy as a hotel excise tax,” Martin told the board last week. “That’s sort of envisioned as part of the overall complement of resources that the CFA will use as you move forward with the convention center facilities.”
Martin said she has started a draft resolution for levying a lodging tax and will provide it to the board at a future meeting along with statutory materials and examples of other CFAs operating in the state.
Generally in Ohio, jurisdictions levy a 3% hotel/motel tax while the county collects another 3% for a maximum 6%. But language added to a 2019 state budget bill allowed county commissioners to pass a resolution to create a convention facilities authority — but only if done between July and December of 2019 — that allows the collection of an additional 3%.
The 3% countywide lodging tax collected by Montgomery County averaged about $3.25 million annually over the previous five years before the pandemic, according to county’s Office of Management and Budget.
If as expected the new CFA exercises its authority, lodging taxes in Montgomery County would total 9%. If residents object to the new tax, they can subject it to a referendum vote.
Montgomery County’s $600,000 contribution approved by commissioners Tuesday stemmed from last year’s agreement with Dayton, said Chris Williams, assistant county administrator for Business Services.
“It’s Montgomery County’s monetary commitment to help the convention center,” he said. “It’s our commitment to help move it forward and make it the economic driver that we hope and plan it to be for not just the city of Dayton but Montgomery County and the region.”
Dayton pledged all its lodging tax revenue to the authority through 2060. Lodging tax revenue for Dayton averaged about $805,000 for 2018 and 2019, but receipts are down more than half so far this year due to the pandemic, city records show.
Reynolds said bank accounts are now in place and hiring an executive director is the next critical step toward the transfer of ownership of the convention center from the city to the CFA, potentially by the end of the year.
“If I were to use a baseball analogy, we’re on third base," he said. “We’re almost home.”
Dayton Convention Center by the numbers
150,000
Square feet of floor space
77,000
Square feet of exhibit space
$6 million
Construction cost of the facility opened in 1973
$28 million
Cost of renovations recommended by a consultant in 2015
$3 million
Projected revenue a new 3% lodging tax would generate annually
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