EDITORIAL: Redrawing bed tax boundaries

You’d think it would be OK to use “bed tax” revenue to pay for lifeguards and other beach safety services, since the 5 percent tax on tourist lodgings is supposed to help lure more tourists, and it stands to reason that tourists will go where the beach is safe. But that’s common sense, and government seldom acts with common sense.
Thus, Okaloosa County has to press state lawmakers to clarify how the bed tax can be used.
As with most issues involving the bed tax, this one sprang from last spring’s Tourist Development Council fraud scandal. The state auditor general’s office examined the TDC’s books and, in its report, questioned Okaloosa’s use of bed tax money to pay for beach patrols and lifeguards. Bed tax revenue is supposed to be used to promote tourism.
“So what the board (of commissioners) will have to do is either seek an attorney general opinion or file some type of friendly suit to have a legal determination” on the tax question, said County Administrator Jim Curry.
For now, the commissioners have sent a letter to Northwest Florida legislators asking them to clarify and perhaps expand the tourism-related services that can be funded with bed tax dollars.
Commissioner Nathan Boyles said he’d like to see beach safety and law enforcement “defined in statute as appropriate uses” of bed tax funds. He also has in mind tourism-related projects such as pedestrian walkovers.
We’re not so sure about the latter items. Hotels and condos that will benefit from pedestrian walkovers can pay to have those built. If we start using bed tax dollars for any construction that accommodates tourists — roads, parking lots, street lighting — soon we won’t have any left for tourism promotion.
But lifeguards? That sounds right. According to Okaloosa’s Public Safety Department, 995 people were rescued on county beaches during 2010-12, and 94 percent of those were tourists.
Counties that collect the bed tax should have the flexibility to spend some of that revenue on keeping tourists safe, certainly while they’re at the beach. It’s common sense.