‘Simple as that’: Law requires Hilton Head chamber to divulge spending, Beaufort Co. says
Beaufort County has delivered an ultimatum to the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Beaufort-Port Royal Convention and Visitors Bureau: Tell us exactly how you spend taxpayer money or we will audit your books.
Four months after the chamber, one of the county’s two designated marketing organizations, denied three council members’ requests for a catalog of documents for how the chamber spends the almost $300,000 it gets from the county annually, the county’s finance committee chairman says the chamber is required by ordinance to divulge the information or risk being audited.
Tuesday’s announcement from finance committee chairman Joe Passiment was in response to a local government critic’s repeated demands that the county, the town of Hilton Head Island and the town of Bluffton inspect the records of the chamber and other designated marketing organizations.
Over the past two years, the Hilton Head chamber has denied requests from Beaufort County and Hilton Head leaders for more information on how it spends tax money.
As a designated marketing organization, the chamber is responsible for making sure tourism thrives on Hilton Head, in Bluffton and Beaufort County. Because local governments provide 40 percent of the chamber’s $8.2 million marketing budget, leaders say they have the right to view how that taxpayer money is being spent.
Passiment, citing a county ordinance, said the county will require the organizations to provide the finance committee with information detailing how tax money has been and will be spent and, if committee members are not satisfied with the presentation, they will order an audit of the chamber.
The ordinance “clearly says we can get this. We have the right to audit their books,” Passiment said. “Come this April, we’re going to get the information we need because that’s what [the ordinance] says.”
In August 2018, chamber President and CEO Bill Miles said providing local governments more information would give away the marketing organization’s “secret sauce.”
The ordinance
According to a Beaufort County ordinance, the county’s two designated marketing organizations — the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Beaufort-Port Royal Convention and Visitors Bureau — are required to present to the county in April a proposed budget of how they will spend the allocated tax money.
At the end of each fiscal year, at the August finance committee meeting, the organizations are also required to provide the county with an accounting of all expenditures.
County ordinance says the county may enter the premises of any recipient of accommodations, or ATAX, funds and “make inspections, examine and audit books and records of such person or establishment.”
“It shall be unlawful for any person to fail or refuse to make available the necessary books and records during normal business hours upon 24 hours’ written notice,” the ordinance says.
The county may also make “systematic inspects of all businesses within the unincorporated areas of the county ... to ensure compliance with this chapter.”
“[The ordinance] says clearly they’re going to present revenues and expenditures,” Passiment said Tuesday. “If that report is not sufficient ... we may call for an audit. Simple as that. That’s my take.”
How much money are we talking about?
As the designated marketing organizations for Beaufort County, the two groups receive allocations of accommodations taxes each year — taxes paid by tourists when they stay in a hotel.
The marketing duties are separate from the chamber’s organization of local businesses, although the body’s work directly benefits chamber members.
In the most recent fiscal year, $283,904 in ATAX funds were allocated to the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce from Beaufort County, according to the audit published by J.W. Hunt and Co.
That pales in comparison, however, to the $2 million provided to the chamber from the Town of Hilton Head Island in the same fiscal year.
According to the county’s transparency spending portal, the county paid the Greater Beaufort-Port Royal Convention and Visitors Bureau $402,495 in the most recent fiscal year.
