JOHN COFFELTEditor

A divided Board of Mayor and Aldermen failed to pass the first reading to approve the 2023-24 budget at the May 10 special call meeting due to a split over Manchester Coffee County Conference Center funding.

The budget presented to the board is balanced, pulling $1 million from debt service payment to cover the deficit left after the Finance Committee called for a 10% cut across each department.

The sticking point in the budget is the $500,000 that was allocated to go to the Conference Center. This amount will still not completely fund the budget that the Manchester Public Building Authority passed for the center’s operation, coming in just over $48,000 short.

At the special call meeting a motion to defund the center narrowly failed 3-3 with Mayor Marilyn Howard breaking the tie.

Alderman Julie Anderson made the motion to amend the line item for the center’s funding to zero dollars.

She said that the Conference Center is of keen interest to the public and noted that the center has not made a profit for its 20 years in existence. She accused that loss being in violation of a state law that requires those entities be self-supporting.

“It should be self-supporting. It should not be something we have to subsidize, especially when it’s competing with other restaurants that offer things like catering,” Anderson said.

“I don’t think this was a successful experiment. I think it’s always going to be a hard time to draw a line. I don’t feel good about throwing more money down the black hole when there are several other things in the city that are deserving,” she said.

Aldermen Bob Bellamy and Donny Parsley joined Anderson in voting for defunding the center with Alderman Ryan French (legally voting once he acknowledged an indirect conflict of interest) Joey Hobbs and Vice Mayor Messick objected to the change, and Howard broke the tie with a no vote.

Howard said she did not support completely removing the line item, but did advocate dropping the allocation to $400,000.

Messick made a motion to amend the line item to $400,000, but it died due to a lack of second.

The vote on the budget with the $500,000 also split with Anderson, Bellamy and Parsley voting no. Howard broke the tie, saying that while she knows the merit of the conference center, she is concerned with the PBA’s budget.

Howard expressed concerns about a top-heavy salaries at the center. She questioned too as a lack of transparency from the center about salaries and job descriptions of the top people the city’s allocations fund.

“There is a tie to the city. I make PBA appointments,” Howard said. “I don’t want people to stroke my ego, but I have asked … but I think we are going to have an impasse until we come up with numbers,” she said.

Hobbs, who has remained mostly quiet on the back and forth on the conference center, asked what was the point in asking for those specifics.

“You make the contribution or you don’t, are you going to direct how they use it going forward?” Hobbs argued.

“Do we understand the review of the hotel occupancy tax?” Hobbs said. “It’s people who come here that spend that money.”

He said that the $943,000 projected revenue that comes from the hotel tax, the $550,000 of that goes into the general fund. He criticized the board’s fighting over funding the center with those funds that are not carried by the citizens of the city.

Messick addressed during last week’s very heated special call Finance Meeting the often-cited economic impact that the conference center has. The money that the center brings to the county in sales tax and then directly as hotel tax are said to justify the conference center’s existence, however, Messick noted, most of the citizens don’t feel that impact – the businesses do, but not the citizens.

Bellamy said that he is not anti-conference center, but he “think(s) the taxpayers of Manchester has footed the bill long enough. These taxpayers that go to Walmart and buy groceries and can’t do it…we have beat them to death for 20-something years.”

Messick said at the May 10 BOMA meeting that the conference center reduces the taxpayers taxes $300 a year.

French called for a frank, fact-based discussion. He criticized the mayor’s reasoning as not being based on data.

“A feeling or what’s being said in the community, what does that mean?” French said. “All I’ve ever asked is that when we have debate is that we have objective debate. To debate on the real stuff and not to debate on made up stuff.”

He cautioned that cutting funding to the conference center will affect the city’s entire tax base.

The Finance Committee will hold a special call meeting at 5:30 p.m., May 17 to address the budget. Members of the committee invited the entire board and the PBA to attend.

At last week’s Finance meeting, tempers flared during a similar discussion of the center, when sparks flew among aldermen concerning if French had a conflict of interest and if he should abstain from the discussion as Anderson suggested he should.

PBA member David Bradley said that the reason the budget didn’t change is PBA’s budget is separate entity from the appropriation the city gives to the conference center.

“We set a lot of metrics throughout the year to measure our progress of how we’re doing. To arbitrarily change the budget numbers affects that process,” he said.

“In that regard, what we didn’t want to do… (is cut capital expenditures),” he said.

“We are working on a partnership to get matching funds for capital projects. If we were to pull $50,000 we would lose $50,000 in matching funds,” Bradley said.

The county still shares ownership of the building but pulled out of the support of the center’s operation during the pandemic in a series of meetings that Anderson said were held in private.

The PBA and General Manger Rebecca French (at an earlier meeting) said that talks were positive about them splitting the cost of about half of $218,000 in capital projects. Messick noted at a recent Budget Committee meeting that the county was contractually obligated to do so.

County Mayor Judd Matheny told the Times that the county will certainly do our contractual part in keeping the building viable while under our partial ownership.

“Our Capital Outlay Committee will potentially meet with the Conference Center staff soon. That Committee will recommend any needs to our Budget and Finance Committee for consideration in the coming weeks,” he said.

As far as the Mayor’s office, Matheny has not yet spoken to anyone from the Conference Center “about any needs but I’m certain their request will be handled like any other.”

PBA member Ken Huddleson addressed the committee said there are a lot of intangible benefits to the center.

He cited numbers for the month of December there were 2602 guests to events at the center, to rent 120 hotel rooms. He said that there were 31 events in December. He said the direct impact was $27,000 plus the indirect impact of increased sales in town.

 The statute that governs municipal budgets requires that they be sent to the state two months before the previous one ends, otherwise the city will continue to operate on that previous budget at the start, on July 1. The budget must pass two reading by BOMA to be approved.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.