Alpine officials are in talks about hiring an outside tech firm to track Airbnbs and other short-term rentals, which they hope would help the city recoup lodging taxes that some rental owners are not paying.
At a city council meeting Tuesday, officials discussed a proposal for the work from GovOS, a tech firm that provides compliance services to local governments across the U.S.
The company is the same one that Brewster County hired last year in its similar effort to crack down on unpaid hotel occupancy taxes - known colloquially as “HOT taxes” - but cut ties with months later after deciding it wasn’t worth the money.
While GovOS has offered the city a detailed proposal for its services, council members on Tuesday stressed that the talks are preliminary and that they would be exploring other options as well.
“I am not tied to GovOS at all,” council member Darin Nance said. “I’m open for any of them.”
Rental owners skirting HOT taxes has been a vexing problem for local officials across the Big Bend in recent years as the region’s tourism industry has grown. At Tuesday’s meeting, council member Rick Stephens said officials believe there are 40 to 50 short-term rental units within the city that are “probably not paying HOT funding.”
Multiple tech firms - GovOS is far from the only one - have developed online platforms that allow governmental entities to outsource the tedious task of tracking, permitting and collecting HOT taxes from rental owners. The platforms offer regularly updated databases of local rentals, pulling rental listing data from Airbnb, Vrbo and other short-term rental websites.
Robert Rückes, with the city of Alpine’s building services department, told council members that one key advantage of GovOS’ proposal would be its offering of a 24/7 hotline that rental owners or neighbors could call with concerns.
“So if somebody next to a short-term rental is having an issue, they can call that call center, and they will have the problem handled immediately,” he said.
In Brewster County, officials had hoped to recoup lost HOT tax revenue from their venture with GovOS, but ultimately decided to part ways with the company and keep the job in-house after deciding the company’s services were “overkill,” as County Judge Greg Henington said at the time.
Granicus was another tech firm mentioned at Tuesday’s council meeting, with council member Reagan Stone saying he would like to look into that company’s services. Council members said their next steps would be to explore multiple options and compare different companies’ offerings.
Stephens said he would like to see a cost-benefit breakdown of any particular proposal.
“To me it’s a simple business issue,” he said. “Whatever we’re going to increase in terms of [HOT tax] revenue, it’s got to justify the cost of going and doing it.”
