At the meeting last week, village trustees also questioned how the Franklin County bed tax fund distributes money to events, expressed concern that the process is opaque and said they feel Saranac Lake is not getting its fair share.

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The carnival

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Elysium Rugby plays Old Breed 0-35 during the first day of the Can-Am Rugby Tournament at the Saranac Lake Petrova Field on Friday. (Enterprise photo — Grace McIntyre)

The tournament’s carnival event brings bouncy houses, a beer tent, livestreamed championships, food, raffles, bake sales, membership drives and music into Riverside Park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and is meant to be a community-oriented event to expand the tournament’s impact.

“The rugby tournament is for rugby players — it is for the community to come see it — but we wanted to be able to involve our community of Saranac Lake into it much more than it has been in the past,” Adirondack Rugby, Inc. President Libby Clark, said.

Tournament Director Cameron Moody said, around five years ago, they noticed Saranac Lake was losing spending and hotel stays to Lake Placid on the weekend. The carnival’s goal is to draw people back to Saranac Lake by offering things to keep people here. They tested the idea in 2022 and fully introduced it in 2023.

“Each year we have added a little more and drawn more visitors,” he said.

Can-Am requested county funding for the carnival, Moody said, but did not get it. Trustees took this into consideration as they discussed their contribution.

Moody said they had to plan the carnival with or without funding secured. He’s hoping to break even. They likely won’t make any money on the carnival, but hope it won’t leave a deficit. He feels the fate of the carnival lies on financial support from local governments. The tournament’s costs have “skyrocketed” over the years and if they needed to cut something, the carnival would be the first thing cut because it does not directly impact the rugby side of the event.

Trustee Sean Ryan feels downtown businesses heavily rely on the tournament and the carnival and the village board should not let the event go.

Can-Am produced a report on the estimated economic impact on the region of the 2024 tournament with the North Country Sports Council. In total, it found the event had a $6.5 million economic impact, a 20% increase from the previous year — including $2.9 million for lodging and $1.36 million for food and beverage.

According to the report, 96.5% of ruggers travel to the area for the event and the average stay is 3.5 days.

This year, Clark said they have 108 teams in total scheduled to play, including four wheelchair teams. Can-Am is still the largest 15s rugby tournament in North America.

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County funding

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The county’s occupancy tax law, sometimes colloquially referred to as the “bed tax,” places a 5% tax on all rented rooms at hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts and vacation rentals, with that revenue to be spent on tourism promotion. Spending of this money is approved by the county legislature with advice from the Tourism Advisory Committee. The county took in $1,054,000 in occupancy tax revenue in 2024.

Moody said he submitted TAC funding requests for each event — the tournament, the carnival, wheelchair rugby and the Tupper Lake expansion — separately, as well as in a lump sum, a total of $75,000. The county gave Can-Am $10,000 for the tournament itself through its sports tourism budget — the maximum amount — but did not approve other requests. Moody said they were quite surprised that they got so little this year.

Franklin County Office of Economic Development and Tourism Director Phil Hans said after Can-Am got the $10,000 award, they submitted a second request through the event sponsorship program, which offers a maximum of $1,500.

“By the time that application came in, the majority of event sponsorship funds had already been distributed,” Hans said. “Since they had already received substantial support, priority was given to applicants who had not yet received major funding to ensure fair distribution across communities.”

Moody felt his request was reasonable because the tournament creates so many hotel stays and since some of the funding was going toward expanding further into Franklin Country to create more bed tax revenue.

Because of this decreased funding, their plan to expand the tournament to Tupper Lake with a unified division has been put on hold. Moody said it has been difficult at times to request money from Franklin County, with methods for making requests changing several times.

Trustee Aurora White feels the county is not supporting events that really support Saranac Lake’s economy — Can-Am’s carnival being one of them.

“It’s really disappointing that Franklin County is not sponsoring this event or investing in our community as much as they should,” White said. “With as much money as they earn from our hotels.”

“Saranac Lake has consistently received strong support from Franklin County’s tourism grant programs,” Hans said.

So far this year, he said Saranac Lake has received 36% of the $115,000 in event sponsorship grants distributed by the county, 30% of the $35,000 in co-op marketing funds, 73% of the $36,700 in experiential tourism grants and 22% of the $45,271 in new tourism small business grants. He also added that the year is not over yet. In total, more than $88,900 has been awarded to Saranac Lake projects and partners, he said. The sports tourism budget for this year is $100,000, but the disbursements from the budget are not on the website.

White suggested they work with the county on getting equity in occupancy tax return. She feels Can-Am is one of Saranac Lake’s most important events — in terms of what it brings historically, and economically.

Last year, Moody said Can-Am had requested $90,000, received $25,000 for the tournament and an additional $14,000 for the wheelchair rugby event.

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Transparency

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One of White’s chief complaints is the lack of information the village gets about how much money Saranac Lake lodging brings in to the bed tax fund, and how much it gets in return through that fund.

“Regarding transparency, Franklin County is committed to an open and accessible process,” Hans said. “Award details for the event sponsorship, co-op marketing, experiential tourism and small business programs are publicly available on the county’s website.”

These can be found at tinyurl.com/28ma9273. The sports tourism budget’s awards are not on the website, though.

“Additionally, all grant awards over $1,500 are approved by resolution of the Franklin County Legislature, and the full tourism budget is also available online,” Hans said.

He said state law prohibits the county treasurer from disclosing tax collection data tied to individual properties for privacy reasons, so the county does not do specific breakdowns of bed tax revenue by municipality.

White felt they could still break down revenue by municipality without disclosing private information, especially since nearly every community has short-term rentals. Without this data, she said municipalities are stabbing in the dark at how much revenue they generate for the fund.

This should be well-documented, she feels. If the county can’t do this, then she’s proposing the village create a local tax district — splitting the 5% tax with the village collecting 1% and the county collecting 4%.

White said she has similar concerns about transparency of the numbers with the North Elba LEAF fund on the Essex County side of the village, but they have given her rough numbers and she feels Saranac Lake gets an appropriate amount of money in return from that fund.