A member of the county commission wants to know why the local Sober Living facility is not having to pay a hotel/motel tax.
Commission Bruce Malone raised the question during the regular meeting of the county commission, noting he had posed the idea for investigation some time earlier.
During the recent meeting, Malone noted he had asked Mayor Stribling and County Attorney Hilton Conger to look into the possibility of levying a hotel motel tax on the Sober Living facility in Smithville. Sober Living is advertised as a substance abuse facility where its residents are seeking to shed addictions.
“It is the consensus that the facility does not meet the condition of transient,” Conger said of his discussion of the legalities with CTAS (County Technical Assistance Service), noting the hotel and motel tax is generally based on facilities where residents stay less than 30 days.
“CTAS says it does not think it falls under that realm,” Stribling seconded Conger’s conversation with the state agency. “I talked with them personally and they don’t think it’d hold up in court. It’s not a nursing home or hospital, per se. They don’t tax hotel and motel for hospitals.”
Malone noted that Sober Living itself is not a program but instead the residents who live there receive their substance abuse treatment elsewhere.
“There isn’t any program going on there,”
Malone said. “Treatments are done outside the living facility.”
Malone went on to say that residents there could leave at any time and stay as little as one night.
County Clerk Jim Poss said he researched the beginning of the hotel/motel tax in DeKalb back to its inception in 1996 and found it only impacts places where rooms are rented for people for less than 30 days.
“From what I understand, the people are there for over 30 days,” Poss said. “You can’t tax them hotel/motel taxes because they are living there more than 30 days.”
Malone shot back that he understands 25 percent of the residents who reside at Sober Living leave in less than two weeks.
Stribling pointed out that half-way houses are exempt from the hotel/motel tax, something Sober Living is closely akin to.
Despite Malone’s continued query, Stribling said he didn’t think there is anything further that can be done on the matter given the CTAS ruling.
