LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
                                   Austin, Texas
         
                                   FISCAL NOTE
                               75th Regular Session
         
                                  April 7, 1997
         
         
      TO: Honorable Bill Ratliff, Chair            IN RE:  Senate Bill No. 893, Committee Report 1st House, 
as amended
          Committee on Finance                              By: Moncrief
          Senate
          Austin, Texas
         
         
         
         
         FROM:  John Keel, Director    
         
In response to your request for a Fiscal Note on SB893 ( relating 
to certain convention center hotel facilities) this office has 
detemined the following:
         
         Biennial Net Impact to General Revenue Funds by SB893-Committee Report 1st House, as amended   FN Revision 1
         
The fiscal impact on the state would vary depending on the number 
of hotel projects in enterprise zones in the additional five 
cities that would qualify under the provisions of the bill. 
 Such qualified hotel projects and businesses located in a qualified 
hotel project would receive a rebate of 100 percent of the sales 
and use taxes and 100 percent of the hotel occupancy taxes collected 
at these establishments.  To the extent that such sales and 
use taxes and hotel occupancy taxes are rebated, the state would 
bear a corresponding revenue loss.
         

         
 
FISCAL ANALYSIS
The bill would lower the population bracket 
in the municipal hotel tax law for certain hotel facilities 
and for the pledging of hotel tax revenue for bonds.  It would 
lower the population bracket for a qualified hotel project in 
an enterprise zone.  The bill would take effect immediately. 

METHODOLOGY
Currently, 
the definition of convention center facilities in the hotel 
tax law includes hotels within 1,000 feet of a convention center 
owned by a city with a population of 1.5 million or more, and 
historic hotels within one mile of a convention center owned 
by a city with a population of 1.5 million or more.  Hotel tax 
revenue from these two types of hotels may be pledged by a city 
of population 1.5 million or more for the payment of bonds issued 
to acquire and construct a convention center hotel or to acquire, 
remodel or rehabilitate a historic hotel.  A hotel owned by 
a city with a population of 1.5 million or more is a qualified 
hotel project in an enterprise zone.

The bill would lower 
the city population bracket to 440,000 or more and include counties 
with a population of 440,000 or more in the hotel tax law and 
would allow the hotels to be within the same specified distance 
to a city-owned or county-owned convention center.  By lowering 
the population bracket, the City of Houston would be joined 
by the cities of Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, Austin and Fort 
Worth.  The city population bracket would also be lowered to 
440,000 for a qualified hotel project in an enterprise zone.

LOCAL
The 
fiscal impact on units of local government would vary depending 
on which cities or counties would choose to finance convention 
center facilities through the municipal hotel tax.
          
   Source:            Agencies:   
                                         
                      LBB Staff:   JK ,RR ,SM