Gosack contract, Chaffee, Convention Center on board agenda

On Tuesday the Fort Smith Board of Directors will convene for a short regular voting session to approve a contract for City Administrator Ray Gosack that sets an annual salary at $149,500 as part of an overall package similar to those provided previous administrators.

Gosack, who served the past 12 years as a deputy city administrator, was hired during the board’s Jan. 4 regular meeting with the stipulation that Gosack and City Director Don Hutchings would work on a contract to be presented to the full board Jan. 11.

The package also includes a $450 monthly auto allowance, severance allowance of four months’ salary with health benefits, and a performance review in July and in December each year after 2011. (Complete details on the package can be viewed here.)

“I appreciate the board of directors’ confidence in me, and will work diligently to help Fort Smith thrive, accomplish the board’s goals, and lead the city staff,” Gosack noted in a memo to the board.

Gosack served as acting city administrator following the Nov. 2 firing of then City Administrator Dennis Kelly, who was hired in October 2008.

Following consideration of Gosack’s contract, the board is schedule to reconvene into a study session during which presentations will be made by Ivy Owen, executive director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority, and Claude Legris, executive director of the Fort Smith Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Owen is expected to provide an update of past, ongoing and expected efforts in the redevelopment of Chaffee property, according to Gosack’s board memo.

Legris will talk to the board about the “initial proposal” to merge the Fort Smith Convention Center with the Fort Smith Advertising & Promotions Commission. The merger would be required if hospitality tax funds were used to support the convention center.

“We look forward to this dialogue leading to a decision to preserve and enhance the future of the Center, which is such a critical element to the Fort Smith hospitality industry,” Legris noted in his memo to the board.

It’s likely that Legris’ presentation will espouse the recommendations of an ad hoc committee that was formed by the Fort Smith Board of Directors in April 2010 to find solutions for the convention center funding issue.

The seven-person committee was formed after the board spent more than 18 months trying to come up with a solution to plug an up to $1 million annual deficit when a state turnback program that ended June 2010. The city has received about $1.8 million a year from the tourism turnback fund, but the city will receive only $888,723 in 2010.

The committee reviewed several options, including a 1% hospitality tax, finding cuts in the city’s roughly $40 million operating budget, reallocating a portion of the city’s 1% street tax, re-instituting a business license fee, finding a third-party operator, and the legalities of merging the convention center operations and the Fort Smith A&P.

On May 26, the committee unanimously endorsed the idea of a 1% hospitality tax (prepared food tax) to fill an up to $1 million funding shortfall related to the Fort Smith Convention Center. The 1% tax would also support the U.S. Marshals Museum and art and entertainment facilities and programs.

When the committee presented its report June 8 to the board, the board gave the committee a tepid response, suggesting the need for more study.