December 1, 2011

The Paducah Convention and Visitors Bureau is making an investment in the financially strapped convention and expo centers.

The  CVB board voted Wednesday to pay half the cost of a pending $60,000 contract between the Paducah-McCracken County Convention Center Corporation and the Luther F. Carson Four Rivers Center. The money will likely come from the visitors bureau’s rainy-day fund, which chairman Glen Denton said holds about $175,000.

The convention center corporation oversees operations at the Julian M. Carroll Convention and Paducah Expo centers and has been negotiating a contract with the Carson Center to take over management duties.

Jim Sigler, CCC chairman, said the board will discuss and likely vote Thursday on the Carson Center contract, which a subcommittee has been tweaking since the board’s last meeting Nov. 15. The drafted contract states the Carson Center will provide administrative, sales, booking, coordination, set-up and tear down, janitorial, building security, invoicing and some marketing services for the centers for six months at $10,000 a month.

Sigler said the convention center corporation board approached the CVB to pay for the contract and to help market the centers. The seven-member visitors bureau board voted 4-1, with two members abstaining, to put up $30,000 toward the contract, giving the Carson Center staff 90 days to show what it can do for the centers. Members also agreed to use the CVB staff to develop a marketing plan with the Carson Center, upon the signing of a formal contract.

“I think this $30,000 is a motion to plug the hole in the dike right now,” board member Tom Emerson said.

Denton said it is possible that the visitors bureau will provide additional assistance. He pointed out it is important to protect and support the convention and Carson centers, as significant taxpayer funds are invested in them, and the majority of the board members agreed.

Board member Amy Glasgow, a financial advisor, called the investment risky and voted against the motion. She said that if the board was one of her clients, she would carefully explain the risks associated with dipping into a savings account without a full-proof funding source to back it up.

Denton said he does not anticipate the visitors bureau will suffer financially from the decision unless an unplanned disaster occurs — such as an ice storm, flood, major bridge closure or other event — that causes hotel-room rentals to drop significantly. The visitors bureau receives the majority of its operating budget from transient room tax dollars, which are generated from all hotel and motel room rentals within Paducah and McCracken County.

The amount of money in the rainy-day fund falls just below the visitors bureau normal operating costs for three months, Denton said. It is made up of carryover from the organization’s budget and matching dollars from the state rainy-day fund.

Board members Bob Hoppmann and Kim Rust abstained from Wednesday’s vote because they sit on the convention center board. Hoppmann explained the convention center corporation’s request and position, and he called the $30,000 allotment very generous.

Denton said that the convention and visitors bureau board would have helped earlier if the CCC had approached it when the financial problems started.

“We get requests from all over, and we listen to all the requests,” he said. “Had they asked, we absolutely would have helped.”

Convention center corporation members also discussed at their Nov. 15 meeting asking the CVB to provide financial oversight to the centers because the Carson Center did not include those services in its contract. Denton said the convention and visitors bureau does not have the resources to perform those duties. Instead, Sigler said the CCC’s new bookkeeper, Paducah-based Kemper CPA Group, and financial staff in the city and county will likely help with those tasks.  

As printed in The Paducah Sun, December 1, 2011.