OCEAN CITY — Resort officials this week approved the return of a low-impact, religious-related special event scheduled for this weekend, but not before getting a briefing on the town’s new Return on Investment (ROI) policy.
With little discussion, the Mayor and Council on Monday approved the annual Blessing of the Waters event set for Saturday on the beach at 90th Street for 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Priests from the St. George Greek Orthdox Church will lead a procession across the beach where prayers will be said and a cross will be blessed. The cross will then be tossed into the surf and swimmers will retrieve it before the brief ceremony ends. It’s an event that has been held for years in Ocean City and it requires little in the way of support from the town of Ocean City, but the Mayor and Council took the occasion of its approval on Monday to examine the new ROI policy for special events.
Last fall, Ocean City Special Events Director Frank Miller briefed the council on the long-awaited ROI policy, which is being attached to the existing special permit request forms and provide recommendations to the elected officials on whether or not to approve the events, and whether to provide financial assistance or relief from some of the fees associated with the approvals.
Under the proposal, special events large and small will be required to fill out an expanded approval request form and provide detailed information about the projected number of attendees, how many are expected to stay overnight, what support they would need from the town, both in-kind and financial, and if they are a for-profit or non-profit organization among other things. The information supplied would be submitted to the various departments affected by the special events, and the department heads would provide recommendations.
In short, each special event would be analyzed to determine the town’s cost of supporting the event and the event’s potential impact on tax revenue and the business community. On Monday, the Mayor and Council asked Miller to provide an update on the new ROI policy and how it is now being used to help gauge the value of special events.
“We’re beginning to implement the new ROI calculation on the special events that come before us,” said Miller. “The information is dissected and some of it goes into the return on investment calculation to give the Mayor and Council a recommendation on the value of an event, especially a new event.”
The ROI calculation essentially determines the value of a special event in terms of room tax, amusement tax, heads in beds and backsides in restaurant seats in comparison with the costs to the town in support services and any potential disruption to residents and visitors not participating in the event. In the Blessing of the Waters example, the cost to the town is minimal and the number of participants is comparatively few, resulting in a push of sorts in the ROI calculation. For example, Miller explained each special event will be gauged on a scale of one to 100, and the Blessing of the Waters special event set for Saturday came in somewhere near the middle.
Through the ROI paperwork attached to a special event application, the applicant provides estimates on how many participants are expected and how many overnight stays are anticipated. The ROI application also looks at what the event organizers are seeking from the town, from public safety and public works employees down to the bleachers, public address systems, stages, fencing or cones needed.
“All of those types of requests are looked at in detail,” said Miller. “Those elements go into the ROI calculation. Each department head is required to answer 10 questions and each has a little say on how an event will impact the town.”
Miller said in case of a 5K race or other special event that requires the fencing or cordoning off of certain areas, all of the resources needed to accomplish that go into the ROI calculation and a cost to the town is determined and weighed against the fiscal benefits.
“If an event needs 50 cones, we calculate the cost of delivering the cones from the two people it might take to deliver them and the truck needed to drop them off and pick them up,” said Miller. “We don’t want to overcharge, especially for the non-profits, but we might end up with a discrepancy in the costs of the materials and the labor, for example, and that goes into the equation.”
The council endorsed the new ROI policy last fall and it is just now being implemented during the special event approval process. The council was generally pleased with the early results.
“I think this is very well put together,” said Council President Lloyd Martin. “I think it’s going to help the council a lot when it comes to approving special events.”
Councilman Tony DeLuca said it already appears to be working.
“It seems like since you announced it, there hasn’t been any requests for special discounts,” he said. “It used to seem like every other special event was asking for a discount of relief from the fees.”