The Ocean Shores Lodging Tax Advisory Committee last week began to review more than a dozen requests for an estimated $1.05 million in hotel/motel sales tax revenue next year, but those requests total at least $427,104 more than the city will have available to disburse.

Of the money available, the city has requested $1.06 million for operations at the Ocean Shores Convention Center, including debt payments of $416,994, operations costs of $559,855, repairs and maintenance reserve of $75,000 and $15,000 to run the Visitors Information Center.

The advisory committee met on Sept. 22 also to consider and review applications from a number of events, projects and proposals, including another $200,000 for the ongoing Ocean Shores/North Beach Marketing Co-Op group advertising campaign, and a $60,000 request to move the Visitors Information Center to the Ocean Shores/North Beach Chamber of Commerce on Point Brown Avenue.

Another request comes from the city itself — a proposal already reviewed by the LTAC committee by the Pinnacle consulting and marketing company from San Antonio, Texas, to first conduct a review and make recommendations on Convention Center operations ($20,000), followed by a consulting agreement ($30,000) and another $40,000 reserve to begin to make some of the recommendations.

Other applications were:

• $8,000 for the city’s inclusion in a promotional “Here & Now” marketing publication in 2017, and $7,200 for 2016 too.

• $4,500 for the Lion’s Charitable Foundation to help fund the annual Toast of the Harbor festival.

• $12,000 for the Coastal Interpretive Center.

• $25,000 for Toughman Enterprises to run a triathlon in Ocean Shores.

• $5,400 to continue paying for a promotional Ocean Shores billboard on State Route 109.

The applications combined added up to requests for $412,100.

City Councilman John Lynn, a member of the advisory committee, told other members the amount of revenue is set by the state, and the LTAC body can only make recommendations that have to be approved by the City Council under a state ruling.

“If they change whatever we recommend, they can send it back to us and we have another 45 days to consider what we would do,” Lynn told the other members, made up of three local members of the business community/hotel industry and a member from the Coastal Interpretive Center.

Lynn noted that with few funds available, how the money is disbursed might be a “moot point.”

That’s because the city is obligated first to pay for the Convention Center debt, operations and maintenance.

The advisory committee chose not to take any action yet on recommendations to be sent to the City Council, with members asking for more time to review the funding dilemma.

The committee will meet again at 5:15 p.m. Oct. 12, while the City Council will hold an all-day budget study session Oct. 6 at the Lions Club.