May 14, 2025 By Mike Jones 4 min read

The Washington County commissioners are delaying a decision to withhold funds from the county Tourism Promotion Agency after they said they’ve had productive conversations with the organization’s leaders about reviewing its finances.

The commissioners were poised to add a motion to Thursday’s voting meeting directing the county treasurer to not process payments to the agency until more information is provided about how the money is spent, but reversed course at the last minute.

“Is this the will of the board?” asked Commissioner Larry Maggi, who has publicly opposed stopping payments to the tourism agency.

“It is not. We want to table this,” Commission Chairman Nick Sherman said, surprising others in the room with the about face during Tuesday’s agenda-setting workshop meeting.

At Sherman’s direction, the board agreed to remove the action item from consideration at Thursday’s meeting after he said they’ve spoken to tourism officials about the situation and feel like they’ve made progress. Sherman added they plan to meet with tourism officials soon to discuss its finances and the results of the annual audit submitted April 1.

“They’ve agreed to allow us to look at more of the financial information we had questions about,” Sherman said.

The move comes two weeks after the commissioners approved a motion 2-1 during their May 1 meeting – with Sherman and Commissioner Electra Janis voting in favor and Maggi voting against – to immediately stop the monthly payments to the tourism agency over disagreements about a recent audit the organization submitted. But because the motion was not listed on the public agenda that must be advertised on the county’s website 24 hours in advance, the vote ran afoul of the state’s Sunshine Law and could have been challenged.

Tourism Promotion Agency President Jeff Kotula, who previously said he submitted a lengthy response to requests about the organization’s audit and offered to meet with the commissioners to answer more questions, said he was appreciative of the decision to remove the motion from the agenda.

“We had very productive meetings with them and want to continue that open communication and coordination moving forward,” Kotula said. “There is no doubt the county commissioners believe in Washington County’s bright future and are driving toward that goal every day. We want to be partners in that success and work with them to achieve it.”

Reached by telephone Tuesday afternoon, county Treasurer Tom Flickinger said he would now release the most recent monthly payment of around $130,000 later this week barring any unexpected changes. Flickinger last month asked the commissioners for a formal vote on a decision directing him to withhold the money from tourism if that is what they desired to happen.

“I’m encouraged they are willing to talk and provide some financial information we requested,” county solicitor Gary Sweat said during Tuesday’s workshop meeting about the agency’s response to the county in recent days.

However, that doesn’t mean the issue has been fully resolved. Sweat said he filed an open records request with the tourism agency last month asking it to turn over additional documents, but its attorney denied it over claims the nonprofit organization does not fall under the state’s Right-To-Know Law. Sweat has since appealed to the state’s Office of Open Records, which will have to determine whether the tourism agency is required to comply with the request.

“I think it’s important we get a ruling from (OOR) as to the relationship between the county and the tourism agency,” Sweat said.

Following the meeting, Maggi issued a press release raising concerns about how the May 1 vote was handled, along with the overall situation involving the tourism agency’s funding.

“My main concern is transparency,” Maggi said in a written statement. “Everyone claims to be a proponent of transparency, yet we are seeing more and more instances where transparency is lacking.”

The county’s hotel tax that funds the tourism agency brought in around $2.4 million in 2024.