(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors today (Tues.) heard updates from a couple of different agencies. One of those was from Upper Des Moines Opportunity. Executive Director Jamey Whitney reported on the volume of activity they saw over the past year in the county…
“As far as with Dickinson county we have, in comparison with last year, have seen a slight increase in the number of family homes and services that we’re providing to. Like I said we provided 1,180 individuals with service. Last year it was 1,159. Households, we provided, this last year we provided 622 and the year before it was 590. So we’re seeing a slight increase but not a huge amount. It’s been pretty consistent across the 12 counties that we serve.”
Whitney says they’ve also been seeing upticks in the number of people served through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance, or LIHEAP program.
Supervisors also today (Tues.) heard an update from Rebecca Peters of Okoboji Tourism…
“Our tourism generated expenditures in Dickinson county last year were $302.52 million. That number continues to rise every year. That study is done through the state of Iowa Tourism Office by the U.S. Travel Association. In Dickinson county last year we saw $5.34 million in local tax receipts.”
Peters says nearly $1.1 million in hotel/motel taxes were also collected. She says that will likely continue to grow this coming year…
“We have more hotel rooms that we added in the last year and also we have more vacation rentals in the area and with some different changes that happened at the state legislature, they’re doing a better job at tracking those and making sure that they’re collecting hotel-motel tax revenue as well.”
Peters says tourism was responsible for generating about 2,200 jobs in Dickinson county according to the study.
