Brown County Board Voting On Room Tax Tied To Expo Center

The Brown County Board of Supervisors will vote on a room tax at its Wednesday night meeting. If approved, the money will go to pay for a $93 million expo center.

The 10 percent Brown County room tax won’t go up. Instead the money collected on hotel rooms will be diverted to pay for the new center.

The action comes after the Green Bay City Council voted Tuesday night to approve a motion to direct current room taxes to the project. The approval was needed so the county could collect the extra half cent sales tax that will go to pay for other things like roads, libraries and the jail.

Green Bay Alderman Joe Moore looks at it as an investment, not a tax.

“Whether they be developers, whether they be general workforce, or whoever they may be, there are very few communities in the state of Wisconsin that can say they invested $220 million into themselves,” Moore said. “And I think this really gives us a leg up on the competition.”

Green Bay was the last municipality in the county to approve the room tax.

Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach also supports the plan.

“In the end it was an infrastructure tax relief debt plan, and at the same time we tie that to building a new expo hall through the new room tax,” Streckenbach said.

If approved by the Board the extra half cent sales tax will take effect in January.