May 2, 2025 By Mike Jones 6 min read

Days before Washington County’s tourism season is set to officially kick off this weekend, the county commissioners voted to freeze distribution of the hotel tax revenue to the tourism agency in an escalating feud over transparency and how the money is spent.

In a split vote during Thursday’s meeting, the commissioners temporarily halted the county treasurer from releasing about $150,000 in monthly payments to tourism in a last-minute decision that may have run afoul to the state’s Sunshine Law since it was not publicly listed on the agenda 24 hours in advance of the vote.

That raised the ire of Democratic Commissioner Larry Maggi, who voted against the decision, asking why Republican Commissioners Nick Sherman and Electra Janis decided to place the motion on the agenda Wednesday without ever discussing it at Tuesday morning’s workshop meeting that sets the formal agenda.

“I just have a concern. We didn’t bring this up at the agenda (meeting). First I knew this was going to be (on the agenda) was when the solicitor said (Wednesday) the motion would need to be approved,” Maggi said at the meeting. “And then (Wednesday afternoon) it was put on the agenda. I just have some concerns. I just wish we would’ve had a discussion and had talked about it at the agenda meeting, and I don’t understand why that didn’t happen.”

“What are your concerns?” Sherman asked.

“That we should’ve discussed it,” Maggi responded. “I think it’s important.”

Not only was the item not discussed at Tuesday’s workshop meeting, it wasn’t included in the online version of the agenda that state laws says must be placed on the county’s website one full day before the voting meeting in order to give the public a chance to review it. County solicitor Gary Sweat said Thursday afternoon that how the motion was placed on the agenda may have been improper, so he plans to have the commissioners vote on it again at their May 15 meeting.

“I’m going to have them re-vote,” Sweat said.

Even if there is a momentary reprieve, the last-minute nature of the decision caught Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency President Jeff Kotula by surprise, especially with the third annual “Running of the Wools” festival in Washington set for Saturday and “Free Museum Day” on Sunday.

“I heard about it late (Wednesday) night,” Kotula said in a phone interview shortly after the vote. “We were totally blindsided that our funding was going to be frozen. We received no notification from the county that this was happening. Why were we not informed? This could not have come out at a worst time (with) tourism’s annual kickoff this weekend. … This is when we’re showcasing our county and instead they’re cutting our funding.”

During a lengthy back-and-forth with Maggi during the meeting, Sherman and Janis said they were unhappy with the apparent incompleteness of the 2024 audit of the tourism agency and what they perceived as a lack of answers to their questions about it.

“The audit that was given to us wasn’t complete. There was not questions that were answered on there. There was many of them,” Sherman said. “We’re simply asking questions specifically with how money is being spent. I ask for transparency in government.”

“It was an audit, but it’s not a complete audit,” Janis added.

But Maggi said this year’s audit and the past dozen years have been “clean,” and he pointed to a 10-page response that Kotula sent to the commissioners answering a dozen questions from Sherman. Kotula later said that he and the tourism board met with the commissioners on March 27 to address any concerns, then submitted the audit on time a few days later and responded to Sherman’s questions on April 14. Kotula said he would be willing to sit down again with the commissioners to continue the dialogue.

However, Sherman seemed unimpressed by the 10-page response and wanted more information, seemingly using the monthly payment as a bargaining chip to pry more information from the tourism agency. A joint press release that Sherman and Janis sent after the meeting said they were specifically asking for the tourism agency’s articles of incorporation, its bylaws, the board’s meeting minutes, bank statements in 2024, the joint operating agreement between it and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, employment contracts for its officers, directors and workers, and consulting contracts and service agreements.

“We have $3 million annually going out and you can’t tell me salaries. You can’t tell me where they’re traveling. You can’t tell me what they’re spending on consultant fees,” Sherman said at the meeting. “There is a laundry list of things we cannot answer about the $3 million that’s going out. We have a duty and obligation to provide transparency to taxpayers, and that’s what I’m doing.”

He added that he did not think freezing the funds would affect any upcoming programs because the tourism agency had a cash balance of $1.174 million at the end of 2024, and the 2023 audit showed it had $2.34 million in certificates of deposit.

“There are no issues of any kind of shortfalls,” Sherman said.

Kotula responded that the large savings balance is due to the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic when many tourism opportunities were temporarily shuttered as the coronavirus spread. He pointed to $25,000 grants that will be disbursed to each of Washington County’s 66 municipalities to help celebrate the leadup to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next year, along with additional money to boost tourism for the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh.

“We have made every effort to answer their questions openly and transparently,” Kotula said. “We don’t know what their goals are with this.”

The revenue funneled to the tourism agency is funded through the tax levied on people staying overnight at hotels in the county. County Treasurer Tom Flickinger did not respond to a phone message seeking comment on whether he would release this month’s payment due to the flawed motion.