Keeping a city running takes a lot of moving parts. The Lee County Clerk of Courts and Visitor & Convention Bureau are just two parts of a well-oiled machine that contributes to the success of Fort Myers.
The integral roles that both entities of the county play were addressed Thursday at the Luminary Hotel in Fort Myers at the Downtown Property Association’s monthly meeting.
“We’re probably best known for paying your traffic tickets and picking your jury duty summons,” said Kevin Karnes, the Lee County Clerk of Court and Comptroller. “But the clerk of court and comptroller has a much bigger footprint in our community.”
Karnes was appointed to his position by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March, but his involvement with the clerk’s office began in 2006 while he attended Florida Gulf Coast University for his bachelor’s degree in legal studies.
He said he took a part-time night job at the clerk’s office so he could focus on his studies during the day and make a difference in the community at night. “It was through that job that I really fell in love with what the clerk’s office does for our community,” Karnes said.
He invested his time in the clerk’s office and moved his way up the ranks, holding several positions over the years, such as evidence specialist and operations manager.
Karnes gives four reasons for the importance of the clerk’s office. Being a neutral partner in the court system is about 60% of what the office does for the community, he said, as the office processes more than 150,000 court cases every year. The oversight of tax dollars is also part of his role as comptroller, a title that he says few people know has always been a part of the clerk’s role.
“A lot of individuals in our community don’t know that we pay all the county’s bills,” Karnes said. “If your county commissioners are willing to spend your taxpayer dollars, my office is writing a check. We’re doing all the accounting work, we’re doing all the reconciliation and we’re doing all their financial reporting.”
Karnes said the clerk’s office already saved the taxpayers $150,000 this year.
Preserving the records of the community’s life and protecting taxpayers and ensuring accountability are also roles that serve the community from the clerk’s office. The county just broke a $2 billion portfolio this week with the new money from the American Rescue Plan, as Karnes stressed the significance of his title of comptroller, because he oversees finances.
The clerk’s office also collects the tourist tax for the county and provides the data to the Tourist Development Council, an advisory board appointed by the county commissioners that works alongside the county’s Visitor & Convention Bureau.
“We’re the lead marketing agency for the county,” said Tamara Pigott, executive director of the Visitor & Convention Bureau.
The bureau’s work is funded exclusively from the bed tax, otherwise known as the tourist tax.
The bureau now advertises the area as “Fort Myers—Islands, Beaches & Neighborhoods,” acknowledging that while it advertises for the county, Fort Myers is the name that keeps people coming in.
“About 70% of our visitors fly into the county,” Pigott said. “When you book your tickets, you book into RSW but when you’re on JetBlue, United, American or Delta, Fort Myers is what you’re entering on that line. That’s how they get here. That’s the name we use to market.”
After the clerk collects the tax money and is sent over to the bureau, that money goes into what Pigott describes as three big pots. About 54% of the money goes toward advertising and promotion, 26.4% goes right back into the local economy for the county’s beaches and shorelines and 20% goes to the debt service of any major maintenance on stadium facilities.
In 2021, the county made $53.3 million in tourist tax revenue, the best year in the history of Lee County. Pigott attributed this to pent-up demand from COVID-19 restrictions from the year prior, when the county experienced a 10.4% drop in revenue. This year, the county made $51.5 million in tourist tax revenue so far.
Pigott said the county’s tourism is dependent on air service, which took a hit during the peak of the pandemic, and now continues to struggle with staffing constraints in the airline industry.
“Everything we do is so contingent on air service,” she said. “If you’re driving to Florida, we’re at the bottom. There are a lot of beautiful beaches to stop at before you get to our beautiful beaches.”
In 2021, 94% of the county’s visitors were domestic, while 6% were international, a stark contrast from the usual 23% of international visitors the county is used to. Pigott expects it will take years to build back the county’s international tourism. However, the county is still anticipating its most successful year in tourist tax revenue.
“This is your community,” she said. “Brag about it.”
