Ketchum’s fiscal years are October through September. The city’s calculations for the fiscal year include the amounts it collects in those months, not the months they are collected by businesses. Businesses submit the funds to the city the month after they collect sales.

With LOT collections for three months still to go this fiscal year, the city could top the record for the 2020-21 fiscal year, when the city brought in just over $3.3 million. The city has been “conservative” in budgeting LOT revenue for the current fiscal year, city spokeswoman Lisa Enourato said, forecasting $2.4 million in revenue.

The city collects a 3% LOT on room sales (including hotel rooms and short-term rentals), a 3% LOT on consumer liquor sales, and a 2% LOT on general retail sales and building materials (but excluding groceries). The city is authorized by the state to collect taxes through a law that allows small resort towns to tax specific sales categories to offset in their budgets the financial impacts of hosting large numbers of visitors. The funds are used to support a variety of municipal services and projects, with the majority in Ketchum being budgeted for emergency services.

These numbers include a 1% LOT in the same sales areas collected as part of a voter-approved initiative to support commercial air service in the Wood River Valley. These tax funds are set aside and transferred monthly to the Sun Valley Air Service Board, which allocates the funds to subsidize and market commercial flights to Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey.

The city keeps separate calculations for the so-called “1% for the air” tax. It raised about $2.25 million in the first nine months of the current fiscal year through the Air Service Tax, up about $296,000, or about 10%, from the first nine months. month of the previous fiscal year.

Voters must approve and renew local option taxes. The current city general LOT approval lasts until the end of 2027. The “1% for air” tax is approved until the end of 2023.

As the city waits to see its LOT revenue for the last three months of the fiscal year, a recent report on hotel and vacation rental occupancy indicates that tourism – which accounts for a large percentage of LOT revenue – may slow slightly .

The report from Inntopia, a Vermont-based travel services and analytics company, and tourism organization Visit Sun Valley indicates that while occupancy of lodging units has increased, it is expected to decline in the coming months .

Based on reservations as of June 30, paid occupancy in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area rose 14.4% in June, the report said, and the average daily rate rose 2% to $307. . For the Greater West region in June, the resort occupancy rate fell by 2.9%, the report said.

Occupancy in the Sun Valley area increased 25.6% in the six months from January to June, the report said, but advance bookings declined each month from July to November. Reservations on the books as of June 30 ranged from a 12.6% decline in August to 33.3% in November, compared to the same period last year. However, bookings for December were up 25.2%, as of June 30.

The drop in advance bookings in the Sun Valley area mirrors a similar trend at other western mountain resorts, the report’s data shows.

“Bookings have certainly slowed for the remainder of the summer and fall,” Visit Sun Valley operations manager Jessica Maynard said in a July 14 email when the report was released. “Overall 4th of July weekend was good for accommodations, but occupancy was down [compared] to 2021. Labor Day weekend seems to be going at the same pace as last year.

Some of the reasons bookings could drop in the coming months could be high inflation, high gas prices and declining consumer confidence, Maynard noted.

The next occupancy report, with data through July 31, is expected to be released in about two weeks.