Steamboat Springs to explore the establishment of a business licensing program

Steamboat Springs will explore creating a business licensing program — a move the Steamboat Springs Chamber supports — although it could be years before something is implemented.

During a work session on Tuesday, March 14, Steamboat Finance Director Kim Weber explained to the City Council what such a program would look like and how more business information, especially emergency contact numbers, would benefit the city.

Chamber CEO Sarah Leonard said talk of such a program arose early in the COVID-19 pandemic when the chamber tried to reach out to businesses but lacked information for everyone.

“We have a pretty good database of businesses in our membership, but not a comprehensive database,” Leonard said. “With all those health emergencies, there wasn’t a good way to make sure everyone in the business community was getting the information they needed and hearing about all these regulations.”

Business licensing programs like the one under discussion are common, and City Manager Gary Sutter said every other municipality he’s worked in has one.

The city plans to study exactly what information should be included as part of the permitting process, but a significant goal is to find out what businesses are in the community and the conditions for growth.

“If we can get a good understanding of the businesses we have in the community, it will inform what we need to target and expand,” Leonard said.

According to Weber, there are currently about 3,600 businesses that have sales tax permits and are required to collect and remit sales tax to the city, but this is not comprehensive. For example, a company providing cleaning services for short-term rentals, therefore, does not require a sales tax permit.

A new short-term rental licensing program would be another type of business license, but planning director Rebecca Bessey said it’s not pulling the same data as a business license.

In 2017, as many as 9,100 businesses could be located in Root County when the city received funding. Still, Weber said the review had difficulty finding data and that it was completed using six different sources, which reduces confidence in the accuracy of the results.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there are between 6,000 and 6,500 “employer establishments and non-employer establishments” in Rott County, although not all of them do business in the county.

Leonard said the chamber has about 550 members and a large community database with 2,200 records, although that’s not necessarily all businesses and in some cases may include employees of businesses.

“It’s a big number,” Weber said. “If we have 3,600 sales tax permits, 6,000 businesses is probably not an unreasonable number.”

Council President Robin Crostan says the city is otherwise “missing the boat” as it tries to understand the broader economic picture, saying it’s important to know about these businesses that don’t pay sales tax.

“It keeps us informed as a council about what’s going on in our community, really, there’s change,” said council member Gail Gary. “If there’s a shift in sentiment that there are more services, do we have more (locally independent) workers?”

Sutter said he believes the program should be created to pay for itself, but not generate revenue for the city. Given the growth of the Internet economy, he said, he would hire an outside source to learn what other communities are doing and how things might be different.

Citing her ongoing work to establish short-term rental licensing, Bessey cautioned against thinking that establishing such a program would be easy for workers. If the city pursues such a program, it could lead to a new urban district.

“Our best estimate is that we will have 3,000 (short-term rental permits),” Bessie said. “It’s a heavy load, and if we’re talking about 6,000-plus of them, we’re not talking about one worker. We’re talking about a new division being placed in whatever class is best described.

To contact Dylan Anderson, call 970-871-4247 or email danderson@SteamboatPilot.com.