BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Bay County Commissioners voted to reallocate stagnant beach renourishment funds to the public safety budget.
Every time someone rents a hotel room or condo in Panama City, Panama City Beach, or Mexico Beach, they pay a bed tax. In Bay County, that tax is 5 cents for every dollar, with each penny earmarked for specific uses. The third cent is supposed to go to beach renourishment, but it hasn’t been used since 2017.
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“Throughout the years, it has been collected from bed tax. The tourist development council has just been putting that money away and away and away,” Commissioner Clair Pease said.
State and federal grants paid for the last renourishment, so there’s now $50 million going unused.
“We didn’t need to use that money for the beach renourishment. It has just stacked up and it was just time to do something with it instead of just letting it lay there,” Pease said.
County officials are putting some of that $50 million to work. They are creating a $3.5 million public safety reserve. The rest is going into county reserves, but moving forward, 10% of the third cent will go to public safety agencies.
“We’re talking about opening that money up to be able to use for the sheriff’s department, Panama City Beach Department, water safety, some of that is used for lifeguards. Some of it’s used to buy equipment that they need to be able to safely protect the beach. It’s opening up that money for them to be able to use in many different ways,” Pease said.
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Tourism officials say the extra money will be a significant boost for those agencies.
“We’re really excited to be able to bump up [the budget] from 8% to 10%. The annual budget will increase from $2.6 million to $3.2 million. That’s about a 25% increase that we’re seeing,” Visit Panama City Beach Communications & Social Media Manager Sydney Clifton said.
The majority of the $50 million will stay in reserve to handle future emergencies like natural disasters.
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