Butler County’s tourism sector could soon get a financial boost from a tax increase.

Gov. Tom Wolf last week signed House Bill 794 into law, which raises the allowable county bed tax in 57 Pennsylvania counties, including Butler County, from 3 percent to 5 percent.

The tax would be on people’s invoices for staying in hotel and motel rooms, cabins at campgrounds and university housing.

To take effect in Butler County, the county commissioners would have to approve the increase.

Jack Cohen, president of the county Tourism and Convention Bureau, said the county has more than 2,000 rooms, but that number will increase with several new hotels being built.

If approved, the 2 percentage-point increase would bring in about $600,000 a year in additional revenue for the tourism bureau, county Commissioner Kim Geyer said. That would boost the total tax money from $1.6 million to $2.2 million.

The tourism bureau’s budget last year was $2.3 million. Cohen said this year’s budget has not been determined.

“We’re waiting to see what’s going to happen with this tax,” he said.

Geyer said of the new law, “It would allow us to be more competitive with the surrounding counties. Tourism is a vital component of Butler County’s economic development.”

The other $700,000 in the tourism bureau’s budget comes from membership dues, co-op advertising and event fundraisers.

Geyer said the commissioners have met with Cohen and county Treasurer Diane Marburger to discuss the bill and its potential effects on the county.

No decisions have been made by the commissioners as they are reviewing the law.

“We’re just looking at all the data and in the process of doing an analysis,” Geyer said. “Hopefully we can move forward and make a decision.”

Cohen said the rationale behind the tax increase is the state’s recent budget cut for the tourism industry.

“At one point, they were just under $40 million in funding tourism,” Cohen said of the state. “It’s now $2 million. It’s really nothing. They just don’t have the dollars to fund tourism right now.”

Money from this tax can be only used for tourism purposes.

“We need to be competitive,” Cohen said. “We’re behind the eight ball because we don’t have the funds that some of our competition or other states and communities have. We need to be consistent with everyone else.”

Neighboring Allegheny County’s bed tax is 7 percent.

For the first time, the tax covers cabins rented at campgrounds and rooms rented at universities to nonstudents.

Ed Tanski, owner of Buttercup Woodlands Campground in Renfrew and the campgrounds representative for the tourism bureau, said the tax increase would not impact county residents so much.

“This is a tax that will affect more travelers than it will local residents,” Tanski said. “Your cabins are going to people who are traveling through. There are people coming in from Allegheny County, Beaver County or even cross-country.”

However, Tanski said the additional money received from the tax would benefit county residents by being funneled into the tourism bureau.

“This is something that is needed to promote our state and our counties a little bit more because of the lack of funding from the state itself,” Tanski said.

Officials at Slippery Rock University and the State System of Higher Education, which oversees the 14 state universities, were unable to comment on the law or its potential impacts.

Rita Abent, SRU executive director of university communication and public affairs, said the bill is being reviewed by PASSHE’s legal department.

“Like many bills, there’s language that can be interpreted, so until we have some kind of direction from our legal counsel, we’re not sure to what degree it may or may not impact us,” she said.

Chris Cole, SRU’s director of student center and conference services said the university has 37 groups coming to SRU this summer. A total of 4,000 participants, mostly nonstudents, will use university housing for these camps and conferences.

These include men’s and women’s sports, the American Chesterton Society and Roger Bobo’s Festival of Brass.

Geyer said, “The money invested in tourism is also part of the economic development. It’s about bringing people to our county to visit, to work, to play, to recreate and possibly even establish a business in.”