LAKE PLACID — If tourism is the main economic engine for the Adirondack Park, the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism is the driver.

This nonprofit group drives visitors here with marketing efforts in other parts of the state.

About 87 percent of ROOST’s budget comes from public funds, mainly visitors. To shed some light on how it uses that money, the Enterprise staff sat down with ROOST representatives Thursday. ROOST leaders were transparent with many facets of its 2018 budget, revenue and expenses, and promised to share its 2019 budget and marketing plan after its board approves them, which could be this month.

Doug Hoffman, a certified public accountant based in Lake Placid, accompanied the Enterprise to provide fiscal expertise and clarification on a volunteer basis. Full disclosure: Hoffman was on the board of the Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce, now ROOST, more than 20 years ago. He never did accounting for the group.

ROOST started as the Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce, but after successfully marketing in the village, it began representing more areas of Essex County, soon the entire county, then Hamilton County, then Franklin County. Though still labeled as the “Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce” on sections of its tax forms, President and CEO Jim McKenna said it changed the commercial name to ROOST because it fell more in line with the group’s larger scope of work.

“You think Hamilton County would contract with an organization called ‘Lake Placid?'” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

ROOST’s total budget in 2018 was $4,444,201, of which $3,884,767 was allocated from public money through municipal contracts, state grants, matching fund programs and, most prominently, occupancy taxes in Essex and Franklin counties. The other $559,434 is private revenue gained through means such as internet and guidebook advertisement sales and events income. ROOST had 11 public contracts this year: Essex County, Franklin County, Hamilton County, the village of Lake Placid, the town of North Elba, the village of Saranac Lake, the town of Harrietstown, the village of Tupper Lake, the town of Tupper Lake, the town of Piercefield and the village of Malone. This was the first year Malone had a contract with ROOST, a one-year deal.

“Having 11 contracts like that means that we do a lot of reporting to public organizations,” McKenna said. “Essex County and the town of North Elba are monthly. Most of the other ones are quarterly. It’s not a here-and-there type of thing. We have a lot of interaction with these organizations and their elected officials, and on an annual basis, we have a budget approved by all of them. We go through a lot of public scrutiny, so to speak.”

There are sometimes disagreements politically, but McKenna said all ROOST’s work is based in data. The group looks forward, paying close attention to numbers, but is also patient with the needs and concerns of local governments.

Essex County’s funding toward ROOST comes from a 3 percent occupancy tax — an amount of money collected from every hotel, motel, Airbnb or vacation property rental in the county. For example, if a person pays $300 for a stay at a hotel in Lake Placid, $9 goes to the county, which keeps 5 percent (45 cent) and gives the rest to ROOST.

This is by far ROOST’s biggest revenue source, making up more than half of its budget. In 2018, the occupancy tax garnered $2,685,900 for ROOST. None of this came from the county’s general fund.

McKenna said paying for marketing from the occupancy tax makes more sense in a place like Essex County because it has so many visitors each year. The money comes from the tourists, not the locals. In the ’90s, Essex County used to pay $2 million out of its general fund for marketing until it switched to the occupancy tax model in 2000, the first county in the Adirondack Park to do so.

Franklin County is a little different. It doesn’t have as many rooms, so the county’s contributions to ROOST in 2018 are split between a 5 percent occupancy tax and a general fund contract of $126,000, coming from local property and sales taxes. In 2018 the occupancy tax brought in $350,000.

McKenna said the reliance on Franklin County’s general fund contract has been shrinking over the past few years, and ROOST is hoping the occupancy tax will cover the county for 2019, letting it stop paying from its general fund.

Hamilton County doesn’t have an occupancy tax. In 2018, it paid ROOST $195,000 from its general fund.

Each county also gets more than $100,000 in matching funds from the state’s I Love NY tourism program.

Lake Placid paid ROOST $7,500 this year, Saranac Lake paid $12,500, Harrietstown paid $12,500, and Piercefield paid $4,500. The village and town of Tupper Lake each paid $11,500. Malone granted $25,000.

All this money goes toward things such as branding and marketing efforts, events and websites for each municipality it represents. All the websites for the Tri-Lakes villages are designed and run by ROOST. It also pays for a 32 member staff. Much of ROOST’s work — such as website coding and maintenance and text, photo and video content creation — is done in-house. McKenna said this model is more efficient and cost-effective than hiring third parties. Other aspects, but not many, are outsourced, such as accounting from Saranac Lake-based CPA John Huttlinger.

Because of its 501c(3) status, ROOST’s 990 tax form is public, but no employee salaries are itemized. Huttlinger said 501c(3)s are only required to share salaries of “key employees” who made more than $150,000 a year and other who make more than $100,000, and no one does.

For the past 15 years or so, ROOST has done a Leisure Travel Study, which costs about $27,000 and is conducted by a third party from Plattsburgh, to see how its work has impacted its clients — the return on investment (ROI). The leisure study also asks questions like “Where did you stay while you were here?” “Where did you eat?” and “What activities did you participate in?”

ROOST sent surveys to about 311,000 visitors, and 5,345 people answered. With those, ROOST found that the average ROI for all three counties in 2017 was 62 to 1, meaning for every dollar ROOST spent on marketing efforts, individual visitors put $62 back into local economies.

And that ROI is just from what’s traceable. More people vacationed in the Adirondacks and spent more than what can be collected from the leisure study.

Even with projects that aren’t its direct responsibility, ROOST provides assistance. With overuse in the High Peaks Region, ROOST partnered with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to educate hotel workers on alternative hikes they can direct adventurous tourists toward. ROOST is also assisting Lake Placid and North Elba in setting up rules for an abundance of vacation rental properties. Despite being a tourism-based organization, ROOST has done some work with the Northern Adirondack Board of Realtors to not only get people to visit the Adirondacks but also move to here.

By the end of the meeting, Hoffman didn’t question much of ROOST’s activities.

“I know I’m supposed to be grilling them and looking for things out of the ordinary,” he said, “but nothing really jumped out or made me stop and say, ‘Hey, what’s that?'”

In terms of per-capita income, the North Country is not the richest area within New York’s 62 counties. Hamilton is just outside the top 10, and Essex is just about in the middle, but Franklin is at the bottom of the list, only above the Bronx.

However, what would Essex, Franklin and Hamilton look like without ROOST?

“We’re hoping not to find out,” said Mary Jane Lawrence, ROOST chief of staff. “I don’t think the communities would be as successful in terms of tourism.”

Hoffman said in the early 1970s, Lake Placid was a depressed town.

“I graduated college in ’73, and the last thing I thought of was opportunities here,” he said. “There weren’t people on the sidewalks after Oct. 15. Today, you walked down Main Street in November or May, and I’m totally amazed because it’s crowded.”