By Carolyn Holtzman
Virginia Horse Center Executive Director Katherine Truitt needs to show local government officials an updated budget and business plan for the horse center before they will consider her request to increase the lodging tax on local hotels.
Truitt asked Lexington City Council and Rockbridge County supervisors for a 1-cent-per-dollar increase on the current 2-cent lodging tax during a joint meeting Feb. 24. The horse center is struggling to pay off the $11 million debt the center acquired in 2007 when the state turned it over to private ownership.
Truitt has said publicly that the current lodging tax is not covering the loan repayment.
But council members and supervisors weren’t satisfied with the answers they got from Truitt at the Feb. 24 session. Truitt and horse center Finance Director Vince Ruggierri were unable to show officials a five-year financial plan, and would not disclose the names of the members of the horse center’s board.
City and county officials gave Truitt two weeks to provide the information they sought.
City Council Member Camille Miller said the horse center officials were not prepared for the meeting.
“I was generally disappointed by the lack of strategic thinking that went into the horse center’s documents and presentations,” Miller said. “I left deeply concerned about the current state of the horse center.”
Pruitt told officials at the Feb. 24 meeting that the horse center has been using money from the lodging tax to pay operating expenses instead of paying off the loan. The center’s budget was unclear about how the center planned to pay operating expenses out of its revenues.
“The budget had things such as increase fundraising, increasing all those things, but it didn’t say how they planned to do it,” Miller said.
County Board of Supervisors Vice-Chair David Hinty Jr. wasn’t satisfied, either.
“I asked [Truitt] to provide the Board of Supervisors with a detailed budget of her business, minutes from her meetings with her board and foundation, and a business model to go forward,” Hinty said.
City Council and the supervisors plan to schedule another work session in about a month, after the horse center responds to their request for more information.
“We will look at the new budget and see where the shortfalls are,” Hinty said. “If it falls in our parameters we will raise the tax, and if it doesn’t we won’t raise the tax.”
Miller hopes the horse center will be more forthcoming in the next work session.
“They … wanted to take a line of ‘We’re private, but by the way, we want more money,’” Miller said. “I am concerned that we don’t yet have all of the information that we need to make a favorable decision.”
After repeated attempts by The Rockbridge Report to reach Truitt, she said through a spokeswoman that she would not comment.