Branson Finance Director Allison Ramsey clarifies tourism tax and audit questions

To address recent questions about Branson City finances, Allison Ramsey, the City of Branson Finance Director, was interviewed. To keep things clear and accurate and avoid misinterpretation, this interview is shared in a question-and-answer format. All the questions were asked by Gary J. Groman, Independent Journalist, and answered by Allison: 

Question: During the April elections, a booth was set up at the Ward 3 voting area. The folks manning the booth supposedly wanted to petition the city for a special audit alleging irregularities in the city’s financing process. Before that election, did anyone contact your office about these alleged financial concerns?

Answer: No.

Question: Since the election, has your office received any of those petition sheets from Ward 3 or any other Ward?

Answer: No.

Question: How is the city’s tourism tax split between marketing and infrastructure?

Answer: 25% goes to marketing; the other 75% goes to infrastructure.

Question: If Senate Bill 1646 had passed, would it have changed how the marketing money is spent?

Answer: No.

Question: Would it have changed how the infrastructure money is spent?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How would that money have been spent differently?

Answer: It could be used for the creation of a sports complex.

Question: At a recent public hearing, people discussed how the infrastructure account doesn’t have enough money for current needs, let alone future ones. How could that account pay for regular infrastructure needs and a new sports complex?

Answer: It can support it if we bond our projects like we need to be doing versus cash-flowing them. 

Question: In your opinion, if the city uses bonds, can it cover both the normal infrastructure needs and the new sports complex?

Answer: Yes. If we bond our projects, [the smaller payments are spread out over a longer period of time], and the bonds would be paid off before the asset matures. 

Question: How long would these bonds run?

Answer: Under current tourism tax legislation, we can bond for 20 years.

Question: At the last meeting, Alderman Schultz mentioned a potential error in transferring funds between the infrastructure and marketing accounts. He said the city might need to transfer about $1.75 million a year—or up to $20 million total—from the infrastructure account to the marketing account. What is the story behind that?

Answer: We are allocating those funds correctly and splitting them between the 25% and 75%. But we do have TIF districts and the revenue received is pledged to pay back the TIF district for development, and therefore, we pledge it when we first received the revenue before the 75/25 split, and so he wanted to ensure that we were splitting those funds correctly”

Question: So, has the regular annual audit found any problems with how the city splits these funds?

Answer: No.

Question: Do you expect any changes in the future?

Answer: No, I do not anticipate any changes for that.

Question: Is there anything else you want readers to know about how the Branson finance department handles the city’s money?

Answer: We are fully transparent. We publish numerous financial reports on the website and if anyone has any questions all they have to do is contact us, and we will do the best we can to help them.