All of the groups that applied for lodging taxes from Island County will receive the full amount of their requests next year.

In Oak Harbor, however, some requests had to be trimmed or cut altogether because of the limitation on dollars available. The Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce was the big winner again this year, receiving more than 70 percent of the funds.

In both cases, the process of doling out lodging taxes, also known as two-percent funds, went smoothly as the elected board agreed to recommendations from the respective Lodging Tax Advisory Committees; both the city’s and county’s committees found themselves in the center of kerfuffles in years past.

Oak Harbor received $380,000 in requests and awarded $250,000. The chamber of commerce received $180,000 for marketing and operations. The Oak Harbor Music Festival received the second largest amount at $26,500.

The chamber’s ice rink, the city-owned Whidbey Island Marathon and Oak Harbor Main Street Association’s program for free wi-fi were all denied funding.

Last Tuesday, council members approved the recommendation from the lodging-tax committee. They also decided in a 4-3 vote to refer to the committee a three-year contract with the chamber for $115,000 a year.

Greg Smith, president of the Rotary Club of Oak Harbor, pleaded for an increase in the award for Craig McKenzie Team Foundation, which puts on Hydros for Heroes. The group asked for $30,000 but received only $9,000.

“It was a pretty decent haircut on that, with the fact that a lot of the reduction is now going to be put on our Rotary Club finances to … cover that difference,” he said, noting McKenzie isn’t able to take on the financial risk by himself.

As a result, he said, Rotary will have less money for scholarships and the Food4Kids backpack program.

Councilman Joel Servatius suggested the council increase the amount of funds available, but nobody acted on the suggestion.

Some Oak Harbor officials didn’t seem aware of an informal opinion the state Attorney General’s Office released earlier this year that said the council is able to change the award amounts recommended by the lodging-tax committee. Lodging-tax committees are made up of people from the lodging industry and groups that are eligible to receive the tourism-boosting funds.

According to the informal opinion, the council has to send any changes back to the committee for a 45-day comment period. The committee’s comments, however, are not binding.

Councilwoman Beth Munns told Smith that the council can’t change the amount of the awards.

After the meeting, Munns said she was unaware of the Attorney General opinion and thought, based on the city administrator’s comments, that the council could only adopt the recommendations as-is or reject them altogether, which was the former interpretation from the Municipal Research Council; the agency was since changed the interpretation.

Still, Munns said it was unlikely the council would have wanted to change anything anyway.

The Island County prosecutor asked the Attorney General’s Office for the opinion early this year after commissioners disagreed with the county’s lodging-tax committee over the award for the Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce.

The commissioners changed the award amount, but chamber leaders refused to take the money because they worried about the legality of the commissioners’ action.

Island County Commissioner Helen Price Johnson spearheaded an effort this year to change procedures on the committee in order to make the awarding of money more fair and transparent.

Under the county’s new policy, the committee can no longer change the amount of a request but must either recommend the entire amount or nothing at all. In addition, committee members cannot vote on applications from organizations they are members of to avoid conflicts of interest.

That policy might be impractical for Oak Harbor’s lodging-tax committee as the majority of committee members, if not all, are chamber members.

Two members, Servatius and Jason McFadyen, are on the chamber board of directors. Oak Harbor Mayor Bob Severns, also a chamber board member, appoints the members of the board.

The county commissioners decided to make more of the funds available, a total of $278,000, so that all of the applications were fully funded in the first year of the program.

The Coupeville Chamber of Commerce received the largest award of county funds at $32,000.

Oak Harbor Chamber received $31,000, the Freeland and Langley chambers each got $30,000 and the Camano chamber received $25,000.

Ironically, the county gave $15,000 to the City of Oak Harbor for the marathon, while the city gave itself nothing.