Entities requesting hotel occupancy tax funds, or HOT funds, from the city of Bee Cave will now be required to adhere to certain application deadlines set by City Council at a March 11 meeting. The new deadlines will streamline the application process and ensure fairness, city officials said.

The overview

Hotel occupancy taxes are collected by the city of Bee Cave at a rate of 7%, which has on average garnered the city $550,000 in revenue each fiscal year, according to city documents. Cities in Texas are allowed to utilize these revenues in order to promote tourism and hotel industries through various projects, including enhancement of sports facilities, promotion of arts and advertising, according to the Texas Comptroller.

Various entities may request to receive a portion of the city’s HOT revenues. In Bee Cave, the application process to request these revenues has been updated to specify that applications may be received in two windows throughout the year, with the first round of applications ending May 9 at 5 p.m. and the second ending Jan 9 at 5 p.m.

In previous years, projects like the Special Olympics, Bee Cave Arts Foundation and Lake Travis Film Festival have received portions of the city’s HOT revenues in order to support their events.


The details

Applications received by May 9 may request up to 75% of revenues in any given category of HOT fund expenditures. For example, if an entity were to request funds for promotion of the arts, which as a category makes up 15% of the $550,000 in HOT funds, that entity would be able to receive up to $61,875 of the $82,500 budgeted for that category.
Applications received by Jan. 9 will be able to request up to 25% of revenues, according to a presentation shared by Rebecca Regueira, assistant to the city manager, at a March 11 City Council meeting.

What else?

In addition to the introduction of new application time windows, city staff has worked to provide more clarity to applicants regarding expectations and documentation required by the city, Regueira said.


Applications will now outline what expenditures the city is authorized to make with HOT funds in order to provide clearer expectations for applicants, Regueira said. Additionally, publicity fact sheets for the city’s communications team will need to be filled out by applicants. Any additional information needed will also be requested by the city.

“We’ve been needing this for a while. ... We just feel like [it has been] willy-nilly, projects are just coming in and with approvals it’s kind of first-come, first-serve,” Mayor Kara King said. “It’s so nice to be able to look at the vast majority of projects in totality and figure out how to proportionally give the money out. I feel like it will be fair to all of our applicants on a yearly basis.”