JOHN COFFELT Contributor

After a last minute addition to the Budget and Finance Committee’ June 6 meeting agenda, members approved a recommendation to fund half of $42,665.30 spent on facility repairs at the Manchester Coffee County Conference Center.

The facility is jointly owned by Manchester City and Coffee County governments. While the city has been the sole contributor  to the operation of the facility, the county owns half the building, and many county officials feel the county is obligated to share in the expense of the over 20-year-old building.

Conference Center General Manager Rebecca French told the Budget and Finance and the Capital Outlay Committees during back-to-back meetings that Manchester City did not fully fund the center’s full budget request.

“A lot of the capital plans weren’t done this year because I don’t have a funding source, French said. According to documents provided at the meeting, the center has performed a total of $91,910.80 overall in maintenance and repairs.

The $42,665.30 in repairs that was brought to the county include HVAC, electrical and fire alarm repairs that amount to $25,481.73, outside lights, freezer and a lift for $8,017.86 and a breaker, ADA ramp and ceiling and roof repairs that cost $9,165.71.

Interim County Mayor Dennis Hunt said that the county needs to maintain taxpayers’ equity in the building.

Commissioner Tim Brown agreed, “Since we own half the building, we should fix maintenance problems in the building because it belongs to us.

Around this time last year, French and the oversite board for the Conference Center, the Manchester Public Building Authority, submitted a more expansive capital projects request to the city for over $100,000, which was denied.

French said that the repairs made to t building were all broken items and did not include any preventative maintenance.

Commissioner Laura Nettles questioned the process of the center bringing an invoice for work completed and requesting payment.

Commissioner Joey Hobbs noted that the Manchester PBA was an autonomous board that handles the operation of the center, which would include bidding projects.  

Budget and Finance Chairman Lynn Sebourn suggest the city and the county needs an agreement with the PBA to detail those processes.

“They’re expecting us to fund them, so they should cooperate with our bid process,” Sebourn said.

He also asked if there were city or county employees who could perform certain repairs to save money.

The recommendation unanimously passed Budget and Finance. 

Conference Center to receive $15K in tourism funds

The Conference Center made an initial requested of $10,000 to the Budget and Finance Committee Meeting from the Hotel/Motel Tax fund to use for advertising.

“We advertise Tullahoma, Coffee County and the City of Manchester in tourism initiative that we do on our website, social media and (elsewhere) … to get people to come to our community, stay two nights and visit any type of business on their itinerary,” French said.

“We do that already, since I’ve been at the conference center because it’s the right thing to do to represent the entire county, but I know that there is funding in that tourism budget alone for the entire initiative and this so far year alone I’ve spent $32,000 on advertising.”

French said that if the center is to hit $1 million in gross revenue, it will require $40,000-$45,000 thousand in advertising.

Commissioner Terry Hershman motioned amend the recommendation to raise the amount to $15,000. The motion passed Budget and Finance unanimously.  

The county has roughly $345,000 in the tourism fund line item.