Jack Cohen

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

A new state law allows 57 counties, including Butler County, to raise the county bed tax to 5 percent from 3 percent.

The tax is on people staying in hotel and motel rooms, and for the first time in cabins at campgrounds and in university housing rented to nonstudents.

To take effect, 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.

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.

“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 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.