Geneva officials want to expand the city’s current Destination Geneva grant program, where nonprofits can apply for reimbursements up to $10,000 until funds are exhausted.

Attorney Scott Fintzen presented how the program, meant to help promote overnight guests, tourism and conventions, would work and its legal authority at a special Committee of the Whole this week.

The City Council is expected to take final action on the proposal at its May 18 meeting.

“Under the constitution, our funds have to be used for a public purpose,” Fintzen said Monday night. “They can incidentally benefit a private purpose, but they have to be primarily for a public purpose. We cannot give our money away.”

What the city can do is contract with agencies and issue grants, he said, but they have to be a means to advance a program the law authorizes.

“We can’t just hand over money because we think it’s a good cause or a good purpose unless there is statutory authority for that,” Fintzen said.

The city would use money collected from the city’s motel-hotel tax. As a non-home rule community, the city is restricted in how it can spend the funds. That stipulates the money can only be used to expand tourism, conventions and to bring people from more than 50 miles away to stay overnight in Geneva, he said.

The program, as he presented, provides the details of what applicants can expect. Applicants have to explain their program or project, how it will bring tourists and overnight guests to the city, its economic impact and how they would determine their program’s success.

“The goal here is to at least have some methodology that, from your perspective, makes sense to you in terms of, ‘Yes, we can track these things. This is how we think we’re going to do it,’ and then you go from there,” Fintzen said.

The staff would score the applicants on need, capacity, quality and bring them to the council for consideration, he said.

Applicants have to be from Geneva. If they aren’t or don’t fill the form out correctly, it would be denied.

The council would also have annual oversight of the grant program, Fintzen said.

Ineligible expenses would include the cost of street banners, related to receiving a commission or other revenue, specialty items, promotions or advertising, travel or political campaigns.

Applicants must be legal entities in good standing with a principal place of business in the city’s corporate limits and be current on obligations to the city, Fintzen said.

He also recommended revising the city’s ordinance to match Illinois law.

With the hotel-motel tax bringing in some $300,000-plus per year, and some 60% going to the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau annually, 3rd Ward Alderperson Dean Kilburg asked where the rest of the money goes.

Fintzen said the balance falls to the city, with the limitation that it has to be used to promote tourism, conventions or attract overnight non-resident guests.

The Destination Geneva expanded grant program would have a budget of $75,000 total, with $50,000 allocated for $10,000 reimbursements options and up to six $2,500 grants as well, City Administrator Alex Voigt said.

“If someone is looking for $2,500, to look at ... both the request, the execution of the project and then the follow up, I don’t think it’s going to be… user-friendly,” Kilburg said.

“It’s not meant to be user-friendly,” Fintzen said. “It is meant to ask for documentation that you all need to demonstrate that you are safeguarding and using tax dollars the way they are supposed to be used. ... We’re not in the business of giving out money. That’s my advice. You all do what you want, but that’s my advice.”

Second Ward Alderperson Bradley Kosirog asked if festivals qualify as bringing overnight guests to the city.

“I’m asking about Swedish Days,” Kosirog said, as city officials and the Geneva Chamber of Commerce are at odds over the city’s continued funding for the festival.

Fintzen said if the Chamber applies for a grant reimbursement, it would have to include how many people are expected to come from more than 50 miles a day to stay overnight. He also said that the city ask how that data would be measured.

“The program was not designed to exclude any of the festivals at all,” Fintzen said. “At the same time, everybody has to understand that we have an obligation, a statutory obligation. We cannot use tax dollars for an event, a project or something that can’t reasonably be shown to bring overnight visitors.”

Fintzen said the question is not whether the city is for or against festivals, but rather “Does it advance the objective?”

“That’s the only thing that needs to be answered,” Fintzen said.

“You all have been having a debate ... as to whether or not a festival brings in people from more than 50 miles away, people from more than 25 miles away, whether it brings additional folks into the hotels – I don’t know the answer. And I don’t care,” Fintzen said.

“All I care about is ... when the application comes in, the applicant has to say, ‘We are going to have this event or we’re going to do this project. We believe we are going to bring in overnight visitors or visitors from 50 miles away. And this is why we think that’s the case and this is how we’re going to track it.’ As long as they can say that, that application is eligible,” Fintzen said.