Funding for Mauch Chunk Lake Park and a grant program that helps nonprofit organizations could be in jeopardy under a new proposal for the hotel tax revenue that comes back to the county, officials said.

On Thursday, Carbon County commissioners aired their frustrations on current negotiations with Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau over how much the county would receive back from the approximately $700,000 Carbon collects through the 3 percent tax on hotel rooms, bed-and-breakfasts and other accommodations.“It’s an ongoing issue with Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau over the distribution of the funds we are receiving,” Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said.He said the county stands to drop from the 50 percent revenue under the current memorandum of understanding down to 20 percent for the first $500,000 and 10 percent thereafter.The Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau markets for four counties: Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne counties. Only Wayne County has agreed to the proposal.The commissioners said they are planning on taking a hard stand on this negotiation because a number of initiatives are at risk if the revenue from the tax is cut drastically.Mauch Chunk Lake Park receives 20 percent of the money Carbon receives from the tax.Nonprofit organizations such as the 4-H program and the Carbon County fair can apply for the remaining funds through the hotel tax grant program.“We met with Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau and here is what we said, ‘Share the money and we got an agreement,’ ” Commissioner William O’Gurek said. “We adopted an ordinance at this table that generates $700,000 and we want a share of it.“At risk is the grant program because they want to give us 20 percent, which would be what we give to Mauch Chunk Lake Park,” he added. “It puts the commissioners in the predicament of saying if you’re only giving us 20 percent of the money, do we give it to the park or do you give it to the grant program. If you give it to the park the grant program goes away, but if you give it to the grant program then we have to use taxpayer dollars to fund the park. It puts us in a predicament we don’t want to be in especially when we’re the ones generating the $700,000 and they’re just collecting it all.”Taking a standCommissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said he was disappointed with the lack of communication and failure to recognize Carbon’s memorandum of understanding.“These guys want to play hardball,” Gerhard said. “We are taking a significant hit here and we’re standing up for what we believe in.”The board said that if there is no agreement reached between Carbon and Pocono Mountain Visitors Bureau by the end of March, the commissioners will not vote to turn any of the money collected through hotel rentals for the first quarter of 2017 to the bureau. They said they even go further in disenfranchising as the tourism promotion agency of Carbon County.“We proposed to them and made it perfectly clear that we want a share of that money to come back to Carbon County for the Carbon Chamber of Commerce to award grants similar to what’s on today’s agenda (hotel tax grant awards in the amount of $34,540),” O’Gurek said.“They don’t want to give it to us, but we want the chamber to do it. We have faith in the chamber that they will administer that program in accordance with the act. We want that money coming back here to share with those (nonprofit) organizations. (Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau) need to make up their minds whether they are going to buy into that or we’re going to get someone else to handle that money and give that money in the form of grants.”O’Gurek said that under the new proposal, Carbon County would go from receiving $350,000 from the hotel tax down to approximately $120,000.“So we go from $350,000 to $120,000 and they get all the money?” he said. “If we’re going to be Santa Claus, we’re not going to be Santa Claus for one person, we’re going to be Santa Claus for everybody and be able to give organizations grants and gifts annually, especially when we’re generating the money and they don’t seem to get that message.”Nothstein said that the ball is in the visitors bureau’s court now.“I will not vote for it as it is,” he said, adding that in addition to the proposal, Carbon County also wants to have a voting say on the bureau’s board, something it does not have at this time.Carl Wilgus, president and CEO of Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau, said in a statement Thursday, “We are still hopeful that an acceptable arrangement can be worked out between the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau and the county commissioners. The establishment of Act 18 has placed the fiduciary responsibility of how room tax dollars are spent with the official tourism promotion agency, which in this case is the PMVB. We take this responsibility very seriously. The executive committee of the PMVB also wants to ensure that all four of the counties that make up the PMVB are treated equally when it comes to returning a portion of this room tax for county based tourism marketing.”The renegotiation of the memorandum of understanding regarding the revenue of the hotel tax collections came about last year when new legislation amended the current hotel tax law in place.The current agreement between Carbon and the visitor’s bureau has been in place since 2007 when the former board of commissioners negotiated the 50 percent revenue instead of the initial 20 percent proposed.