Commission Approves Budget Amid Controversy

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – The Hamilton County Commission unanimously passed next year’s fiscal budget.

However, controversy exists over a change to a long time gentleman’s agreement.

For many years, Hamilton County has funded the Chattanooga Tourism Company, formerly known as the Chattanooga Visitors Bureau, through all revenue generated by the county’s lodging tax.

Wednesday, the Commission voted to overrule this agreement and will send the expected increase of nearly two million dollars to recreational area projects.

The Tourism Company will get approximately 10 of the 12 million dollars raised by this tax.

A large crowd gathered at Wednesday’s Hamilton County Commission Meeting as next year’s fiscal budget is discussed.

Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp says that this agreement was never codified into law and has put the county in an awkward position.

Mayor Wamp said, “If we continue the status quo, five years from now, the county will continue to be the sole governmental funder.”

The Chattanooga Tourism Company say they are disappointed with how the decision was made, as they only were notified two weeks ago of the change.

Barry White, the President and CEO of the company, said, “It is going to be a difficult challenge for us to determine what is removed from our budget. How we’re going to have to adjust and react and respond to it.”

White said he is concerned about the company’s financial commitments to events such as Ironman.

Mayor Wamp responded to these concerns.

He said, “I speak on the behalf on the majority of this commission, and the Mayor’s Office to say, if anybody won’t sign a long term contract with you, county government and my guess, city government would be happy. There won’t be any breakdown in the funding necessary to retain the Ironman.”

One commissioner, David Sharpe of District 6, said,”We’ve had this conversation before about other resolutions. I believe that when this body resolves to do something, we should do that.”

The city of Chattanooga right now only funds improvements to the Chattanooga riverfront.

They sent the following statement to News 12:

“Mayor Kelly recognizes and supports the important work that the Chattanooga Tourism Company does and has a great relationship with Mayor Wamp, but the City budget for FY24 has already passed the City Council. So for this fiscal year, the City will continue to honor its side of the longstanding agreement with the County, which calls for the City to allocate its share of the hotel-motel tax to cover development of the downtown waterfront – a tourism asset. The City, County, and Chattanooga Tourism will need to sit down and talk through priorities to ensure an arrangement that works for everyone moving forward.”

White says an agreement needs to come sooner than later, but at earliest wouldn’t happen until the next budget cycle.

He said, “We think it’s more important is that these multi-year agreements that we have with some of these sporting events and how do we commit to those if we aren’t sure of funding and continuous funding three years from now.”

In addition to the debate over funding for the Chattanooga Tourism Company, there was also a spirited debate over school funding.

Commissioner Joe Graham of District 11 took issue with a line of the budget that appropriate six million dollars of funding to Hamilton County Schools explicitly for new projects.

This comes from an unassigned division of funding.

Commissioner Graham argued that the Commission has always helped the school system purchase new properties or help with renovations when asked.

He said, “I don’t think we have ever, not one time, told the school system that we would not buy a building, or that we would not buy a piece of property, or that we would not try to improve a building that we had the revenue for. To add these strings to our budget not only supersedes our authority, it’s extremely disrespectful.”

Hamilton County Schools superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson said, “Can’t sit here and not address a commissioner calling out our board for being disrespectful. They are elected just like you are.”

Graham proposed an amendment to leave the six million dollars without any specific designation but it failed 7-4.

The county also approved the purchase of the Golden Gateway site for a future technical school on the Westside.