Approving budget proposals

for both the Fred Brown Jr. Amphitheater and Peachtree City Tennis Center

will be on the agenda of tonight's Peachtree City Tourism Association

meeting.

Getting the association's

finances in order is the top priority for the association's board

of directors, meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Gathering Place.

It will be the only opportunity

to sign off on spending plans before Thursday's City Council meeting,

when the council will be asked to approve the management contract between

the city and tourism association. The council will also be asked to give

approval to the association's budget, which starts Dec. 1 and continues

through Sept. 30, 2004, the end of the fiscal year.

The Development Authority of

Peachtree City officially resigned its management agreement to operate

the facilities in October, effective the end of this month.

The tourism association, which

has applied for non-profit status, intends to take over operations of

the two venues in less than two weeks. City Manager Bernard McMullen,

who serves on the tourism board, said adoption of benefits packages for

16 full-time amphitheater and tennis center employees was the most crucial

budget item.

City Councilman Steve Rapson

was elected chairman of the board last week, and fellow Councilman Murray

Weed is vice chairman. City Finance Director Paul Salvatore and volunteer

Recreation Commission Chairman David Ring round out the board.

Still to come, likely after

the first of the year, is a new intergovernmental agreement involving

distribution of the city's hotel-motel tax, McMullen said.

The tax revenues are divided

according to a set formula agreed to by the DAPC and the Airport Authority,

said McMullen. Non-profit status for the tourism association is necessary

for it to serve in the same role.

While the association will

rely on some portion of the guest tax, the goal for both the amphitheater

and tennis center is to have operations self-supporting as quickly as

possible.

For the current fiscal year,

the DAPC is budgeted to receive 3.62 percent of the 6 percent hotel-motel

tax, with 1.92 percent going to airport uses. The remaining .46 percent

is left to the city to spend on the general fund as it sees fit.

"My expectation is that

it will probably stay fixed for this fiscal year, in terms of the Airport

Authority and city accounts, but a good portion of that 3.62 percent that

was going to the DAPC was in fact being used for their debt service,"

said McMullen. "A new intra-governmental agreement will have to be

established between the city and DPAC, and part of that will be determining

a new funding mechanism for the DAPC indebtedness."

The DAPC is estimated to have

incurred about $1.5 million in debt in recent years, either because operating

expenses exceeded revenues or because of cost overruns related to the

expansion of the tennis center last year.

While the DAPC will hand over

the contracts for running the venues on Dec. 1, the organization will

still be responsible for paying off its debts and eliminating its own

red ink.