Employees of the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission will ring in 2025 with some extra cash in their pockets.

At its regular meeting held Wednesday, Oct. 23, the CAPC voted 5-1 to approve an end-ofyear bonus to the five staff members because of the work that has gone on throughout the year, specifically over the past few months.

“As somebody who runs a lodging business, I feel I have seen a massive pickup in and increase in my business here this fall and I do think the CAPC [staff] deserves credit for the hard work,” commissioner Shira Fouste said.

The idea of giving the staff a raise has been discussed by the CAPC the past couple of months and commissioner Heather Wilson presented research that she said shows that staff members are underpaid in their roles and deserved the bonuses.

Wilson’s proposal included taking $17,250 from the 2024 budget to split between the CAPC’s five paid positions.

“Not even 1 percent of our entire budget to be divided between five people as an end-of year-bonus,” she said. “They’re doing the work of multiple people and there is no one who will convince me otherwise. They’re all, according to the data, underpaid, some grossly underpaid. This is the least we can do.”

Commissioner Robert Schmid said while he supported the staff getting a bonus, he would have rather tabled the idea so he could look at the numbers further. That led to Wilson saying, “I am very surprised that there would be any pushback on this.”

Wilson’s presentation included information from the Arkansas Attorney General’s office regarding what is allowed as far as bonuses for publicly funded positions in the state. She also shared numbers from the United States Department of Labor to show how the CAPC roles are underpaid compared with national averages.

She also compared CAPC staff compensation to comparable roles in other Northwest Arkansas cities.

Paid staff includes director Mike Maloney, marketing and communications manager Katelyn Jerrell, administrative manager Danyelle Harris, group sales manager Janalee Olhausen-Kaylor and finance director Ty Reed.

“What I have done is show what the pay is in Arkansas and what the pay is in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers,” she said. “That’s as close as we can get from the U.S. government and what the disparity is between what we pay and what our staff should be paid according to the government. You’ll see … for advertising and promotion manager, you will see for marketing coordinator, you will see for administrative manager, group sales and finance director. You will also see that some of these numbers are very startling.”

Of the $17,250 in bonuses approved by commissioners, Maloney will receive $7,000, which is 7.78 percent of his salary. Bonuses of $3,000 will go to Jerrell (5.36 percent of salary), Harris (5.36 percent of salary) and Olhausen-Kaylor (6.01 percent of salary), while Reed, who was recently hired in a part-time capacity, will receive $1,250. All bonuses approved are gross amounts before withholdings.

“… The staff have worked their asses off and I believe they deserve it..,” commissioner David Avanzino said.

Fouste said the amount approved is reasonable based on the tourism that has recently been brought into the city.

“For perspective, when people come up with an event and we can give up to $5,000 to folks for a singular event to bring in tourism, and these folks are driving in large numbers for all of us in tourism, it seems like a drop in the hat overall,” Fouste said. “The amount is very, very small to say thank you from all of us in lodging, restaurants and retail, and all of that for the turnaround that we’ve been getting.”

FULL-TIME FINANCE DIRECTOR

In another approval affecting the CAPC staff, Reed’s role will now become a full-time position.

The CAPC voted unanimously to shift the position from part-time to a 40-hour week while maintaining the $35 an hour pay rate.

“When we went back and took a look at the twoand- a-half page requirements for the financial director, it became rather obvious that this job was way bigger than a parttime position,” Maloney told commissioners. “And I think what we did in November 2023, when I was hired as the interim director, the finance director at that particular time, who basically was also hired as an interim finance director, really was assuming the position of a full-time finance director. And I think what we have seen right now, based upon a number of things that have to be done to adhere to really the best practices of our budgets, we need someone with eyes on the prize 40 hours a week.”

Schmid mentioned earlier in the meeting the possibility of lodging- type businesses in the city that aren’t collecting and remitting advertising and promotion taxes, and Maloney said having a full-time finance director to help investigate such non-complying entities is important.

“I think that Ty has demonstrated his capabilities very well. I think he’s probably one of the best resources we have right now for digging into this particular type of information,” Maloney said. “One of the issues that we have, and I think this is a strong one because it goes back to Robert and his point about understanding who is out there who isn’t doing the tax collection. What we have found is, is that this is a job for the finance director. It’s also a job for the finance director to be able to go in and identify who’s current and working with the city, … and then being able to go in and implement basically some investigative activities that we’ve not been able to do.

“I think that’s a very important position for us to be in. Ty has done great job up at this point, and he’s very sharp and he knows the business.”

Schmid agreed, saying that staying on top of audits and delinquent payers is important.

“It’s really good to have somebody who has the time to follow up on all those things and make sure everybody plays by the book,” he said.

Reed’s ability to be in the CAPC office regularly is an important for public interaction as well, Maloney said.

“We open at 8 in the morning, we close at 5. We do it five days a week,” he said. “We’re a business. A part-time finance director can’t answer questions to the public when they walk in at 2 in the afternoon because they live someplace else or they only work part time.”

MADDEN PRESENTATION Taylor Goessmann, destination strategy director with Madden Media, the CAPC’s marketing agency, gave a presentation to commissioners about everything that has happened in 2024 and looked ahead to 2025.

Goessmann said Madden quickly acknowledged Eureka Springs’ “very diverse, diverse and all-important audiences” when forming its plan for 2024.

“We have some key target audiences and demographics, including family travelers, arts and culture, entertainment, outdoor motorcyclists, wedding planning travelers and the couples, the romantic getaway travelers,” she said.

Target markets for paid media efforts included Kansas City, Springfield, Little Rock, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Fort Smith, St. Louis, Wichita, Shreveport and Houston, Goessmann said.

“This is a representation of when we’re doing targeted media advertising where those ads are going,” she said. “And then when retargeting efforts happen, that can be on a national scale once those people have engaged with our advertising.”

When the CAPC approved its new marketing motto, “Free to Be,” Madden pivoted and now is including the theme in all advertising, said Goessmann, who is based in Ozark, Mo.

“…Ultimately, the Free to Be concept was selected as a campaign that celebrates Eureka’s welcoming culture, history of rejuvenation and boundless beauty …,” she said. “Enhancing our message that Eureka Springs is where you’re Free to Be extends a warm invitation to come experience Eureka as your most authentic self, no matter what that may mean.”

Members of the Madden team were in Eureka Springs in July and did video and photography shoots that are now being used across media platforms, Goessman said, and the team was back in the city last week gathering future content.

Digital advertising performance included 11 million branded impressions and 579,369 clicks, commissioners were told. Also, unpaid advertising accounted for 4.9 million url impressions, Goessmann said.

Public relations efforts have also been very successful, she said, specifically pointing to the city’s annual Zombie Crawl and other Halloween activities being mentioned recently on NBC’s “The Today Show.”

“That was such a great example of the orchestrated efforts of the state pitching efforts, the CAPC being quick to action on anything those journalists needed … showing great footage of Eureka Springs that was beautifully done,” Goessmann said. “And then our efforts … a collaborative effort,” In all, unpaid media has had an advertising value equivalence of more than $1.4 million, she added, catching the attention of commissioners.

“… The return on investment, $1.4 million and our budget is $2.1,” commissioner Bradley Tate-Greene said. “I can’t emphatically point that out enough.”

Goessmann responded: “Ad value equivalency is fantastic. We have about half of a million dollars in paid media that is unrelated to that. That’s $1.4 million of earned media from our PR efforts. We are really proud to talk about that number.”

FUNDING REQUESTS

A pair of funding requests were approved by commissioners.

The Krewe of Krazo was approved to receive up $5,000 for a series of Mardi Gras events that will take place from Jan. 16 through the first week in March. Activities will include two balls, two parades and other events. Also approved was up to $5,000 for a new event hosted by Eureka Sky Entertainment called “Eureka Elvis and Friends Festival,” which will take place the weekend of May 16-18.

FINAL MEETING BEFORE VOTE

At their final meeting before election day on Tuesday, Nov. 5, commissioners gave a final plea for citizens to vote against a ballot initiative that, if approved, would abolish the CAPC and repeal the city’s 3 percent advertising and promotion tax.

Avanzino, who spoke sternly at a recent city council meeting regarding those who initiated the petition to get the item on the ballot, reiterated those remarks.

“I had a lot of questions about my comments made at city council … asking me if I did in fact mean to call those people who originated this petition petulant children,” he said. “I absolutely meant to call them petulant children. I just want to clear that up right now.

“Last thing I have to say is just get out there and vote. Vote no on No. 3.”