Councilors, committee comes together for work session
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
From Best of the Best to Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, people can always find a fun event happening in Gallup.
Many of the city’s long-standing events are supported by the Lodger’s Tax fund.
But lately, city officials including Gallup’s Tourism and Marketing Manager Matt Robinson and the City Manager Frank Chiapetti Jr. have voiced concern for depleting funds in the Lodger’s Tax account.
Robinson has said during multiple city council meetings that this phenomenon is due to a lack of “heads in beds,” or people staying in Gallup hotels overnight.
“People just aren’t staying in hotels as much as they did before,” Robinson said during a March 11 discussion about the program. “I think we were kind of artificially bumped through Covid … and now I think we’re back down to where we’ve been historically. And what I’m seeing in the trends is that our events are not driving [enough] overnight stays to justify this amount of money we’re putting into the events.”
During the May 13 city council meeting the councilors elected to hold a joint work session with the Lodger’s Tax Commission to discuss possible changes to the lodger’s tax program. That special meeting was finally held on Oct. 6.
Before possible changes were discussed, Robinson laid out some background information on the program and where it stands now.
About 20 events receive Lodger’s Tax funding every year. Robinson said about $179,000 was given out to events during Fiscal Year 2024. That number jumped to $285,000 in FY 2025.
Robinson presented a list of changes, during the Oct. 6 meeting, to the councilors, mayor, and lodger’s tax committee that he believes would decrease the amount of money the city gives out and possibly bring more money into the fund.
The first suggestion was putting a cap on the amount the city can give each event. Right now, an organization can ask for any amount they want, but it’s ultimately up to the committee and councilors to make the final decision.
Councilor Sarah Piano, Dist. 3, previously suggested paying an event organizer a certain percentage of their overall budget — she threw out the amount of 20% as a recommendation.
Notwithstanding, Mayor Louie Bonaguidi suggested giving an organization a set amount of money based on how many days their event lasts.
Another option councilors previously discussed is to give out a flat rate, but simply cap it at a certain amount.
Piano suggested $20,000, as an example.
She also brought up the argument of whether the council and Lodger’s Tax Commission should treat non-profit and for profit organizations differently.
Event coordinators use the money they receive from the city for advertising their event, running it, and for promotional items such as T-shirts and backnumbers.
Robinson has previously said he would like to see more event organizers use their Lodger’s Tax money for more out of town advertising. Right now, only about one-third of the amount given to organizations for their events is spent on advertising outside of Gallup. Robinson has said that this means the City of Gallup isn’t getting “the bang for our buck.”
“I have no problem supporting local events … [but] I want more people to come and be exposed to them,” he said during the March 11 council meeting. “But I want more tourists to come to our community, to stay in our hotels, go shopping, and enjoy Gallup.”
Robinson’s new guidelines propose creating a geographical requirement for advertising in which organizations would be required to promote their events outside of McKinley County, with some exceptions.
According to Robinson’s data, 28% of the Lodger’s Tax funds are used for local advertising. The rest of money is spent on promotional pieces for the events. Last year, the city spent almost $50,000 on buckles.
In 2021, the Lodger’s Tax Committee and the city council had many discussions over what is considered a promotional item, and what they should or shouldn’t spend Lodger’s Tax money on. At the time, council members argued that someone from out of state seeing a T-shirt with the Gallup logo on it serves as advertising for the city.
Four years later, Robinson said he doesn’t see how these promotional items serve as advertising tools for Gallup.
“I won’t argue that a buckle or a saddle isn’t interesting,” he said. “But dollar for dollar, we’ve spent $50,000 on buckles. With $50,000 in advertising, we could reach thousands and thousands of people on social media or in other ways. [These prizes and giveaways] are not a very effective way to advertise our community.”
His new guidelines wouldn’t allow organizations to spend lodger’s tax money on items such as awards, banners, trophies, saddles, or buckles unless an applicant could demonstrate a return to the City because of the award.
Finally, the last change Robinson wants to make to the Lodger’s Tax program involves T-shirts. Many organizations give out shirts during their events, and they feature the city’s logo along with any other sponsors.
Robinson suggested that instead of completely paying for shirts that may only feature the city’s logo on a small portion of the surface area, the city could instead reimburse an organization for the shirts’cost based on how much space the “Visit Gallup” logo occupies on the shirt.
For example, if the logo only takes up 10% of the space on a shirt, the city would pay 10% of the cost it takes to make the shirt.
Besides Robinson’s list of suggestions, the council and commission members also discussed limiting organizations’ application deadlines. Right now, deadlines are scattered throughout the year.
Lodger’s Tax Commission member Emerald Tanner suggested only having one or two deadlines a year. She said looking at more events in a group together rather than scattered throughout the year would help the committee compartmentalize how much money they’re actually approving.
A good chunk of the meeting was spent discussing if there should only be one deadline or two, and where they should fall within the year.
WildThing Championship Bullriding event organizer Larry Peterson noted that his event is often the first one held in the new fiscal year because it takes place in mid-July. He wanted to ensure the committee gives event organizers enough time to plan, prepare, and advertise for their event when creating these deadlines.
A couple of dates were thrown around; Robinson suggested April and October.
Although numerous perspectives and possible changes of the Lodger’s Tax program were discussed during the work session, the councilors and committee members left the meeting without any clear direction on how they wanted to proceed.
Robinson said he will take the discussions into consideration and draft an ordinance the councilors could approve at their Oct. 28 regular meeting.
Before the meeting ended, the Four Corners Youth Football Tournament event organizer Sammy Chioda expressed his appreciation for the council and commission.
“I want to make sure nobody thinks that we’re here not appreciating what we’re getting from Lodger’s Tax, because we all do,” he said. “We’re all concerned. We want to make sure that Gallup has things on the map that draw people to the community.”
