The Albany City Commission wants additional information on the relationship between the Albany Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce following the city attorney’s determination that roughly $86,000 going toward the salary of three chamber officials may run afoul of state law.

Currently, the city of Albany gives half of the revenues collected through Albany’s hotel-motel tax to the CVB, whose job is to promote tourism in Albany and Dougherty County.

Part of the $750,000 the CVB gets each year goes to partially fund the salaries of the chamber’s communications director, its controller and its president and CEO, who also serves as the president of the CVB.

At a meeting Tuesday, City Attorney Nathan Davis said that policy doesn’t adhere to the language in the state law that guides how hotel/motel tax dollars can be spent.

“From what I saw, the general services such as the supervision and accounting services, to me don’t equate to promoting tourism, as required by the hotel-motel tax law,” Davis said. “Someone like (CVB Manager Rashelle) Beasley, who spends 100 percent of her time working to advance tourism, would be covered, sure, but those three others are physically at another location. There’s no documentation to support their contention that 40 percent of their time is used promoting tourism in the city.”

Chamber President Chris Hardy, who receives 40 percent of his salary from the hotel/motel tax, said that he and the chamber do promote tourism.

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