Harrisburg’s National Civil War Museum in Reservoir Park.
Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse took another shot at the National Civil War Museum’s tax subsidy late Friday afternoon, suggesting that the Dauphin County commissioners were taking an excessively long time to conduct a legal review of his request that they freeze the museum’s funding.
In a press release, Papenfuse is quoted as saying that the commissioners have clear authority under a county tax ordinance to withdraw their approval of the museum’s estimated $300,000 subsidy per year.
“This is not a complicated legal question that requires weeks of review,” the mayor is quoted as saying. “It is fully within the commissioners’ authority to stop the National Civil War Museum’s misuse of hotel tax dollars on salaries and general expenses.”
Dauphin County Chief Clerk Chad Saylor, however, said by phone Friday that lawyers for the county “basically don’t share that view.”
“He raises an important issue, and we’re taking it seriously,” Saylor said of the mayor’s request. “But we’re going through our process.”
Saylor added that the current funding arrangement, which involves a combination of state hotel tax law, county ordinance, and separate contractual agreements between various parties involved, is more complicated than the mayor suggests.
Saylor also said that the mayor should not expect a decision from the county until the commissioners have heard from museum representatives at one of their public hearings. Such a presentation by the museum is not yet scheduled, he said.
Friday’s press release is just the latest in the mayor’s sustained efforts to reclaim the museum’s portion of county tourism dollars for city use. He first raised the issue at a county commissioners’ hearing July 30, at which time he also critiqued the museum’s $1 annual rent for the use of millions of dollars worth of city artifacts and a facility whose fair market value is estimated at $633,000 per year.
The press release, with its reference to spending on “salaries and general expenses,” follows a line of argument that the mayor’s office advanced on Wednesday, when it released a report from the National Civil War Museum regarding the museum’s use of hotel tax funds.
According to that report, which only covered the museum’s 2010-11 fiscal year, the museum spent 66 percent of its $270,696 in county tourism dollars on salaries and another 18 percent on utilities.
Only 15 percent was spent on marketing, although the report also identifies the salaries as being for “3 full-time sales and marketing staff.”
The mayor’s office did not provide any reports on the museum’s marketing expenditures in more recent years.
Friday’s press release also draws a distinction between the museum’s share of hotel taxes and the city’s, noting that the county ordinance permits a broader variety of uses for the portion the city receives directly each year.
Among those permitted uses for the city is payment of debt service on bonds issued for the construction of tourism-related facilities, which the mayor’s office says more than consumes the city’s portion—around $750,000—of hotel taxes each year.
“The money the city receives directly from commissioners for tourism is less than the annual debt payments on bonds that helped originally construct the National Civil War Museum and other tourism related facilities,” the mayor is quoted as saying. “I don’t think the public is aware that the city is still paying off debt for this venture.”
In a phone call placed shortly after the press release was issued, the mayor’s spokeswoman, Joyce Davis, was unable to clarify which bond issues the release referred to. But Neil Grover, the city solicitor, said in a subsequent phone interview that they comprised general obligation bonds that were partly used to fund tourism projects, which the city is still paying off.
These bonds include a 1997 series that indirectly financed the Civil War Museum through projects related to Camp Curtin and improvements in Reservoir Park, Grover said. An additional portion of general obligation debt went to finance the construction of the stadium on City Island, which Grover said fits the description of a tourism-related facility.
Saylor, the Dauphin County chief clerk, said Friday that the county would also like to review these expenditures by the city out of its share of hotel tax funds. “Did the mayor mention the 2.5 million?” Saylor said, referring to an estimated $2.5 million the city has received in direct revenue from the tax since 2011. He said the county would like to get information from Harrisburg on how that money was spent, though he acknowledged the county had not yet made any formal request for that information.
Friday’s press release was the mayor’s third substantive action against the museum this week, his first back from a two-week vacation. In addition to the report on marketing expenditures, Papenfuse brought a resolution to City Council Tuesday night asking for its support of his request to county commissioners, which council passed unanimously.
A phone call to Wayne Motts, the National Civil War Museum’s CEO, was not immediately returned Friday afternoon.
This story has been updated to include comments from the Dauphin County chief clerk.
