URBANA — Champaign County Board members will consider providing funding to the Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau at Thursday's meeting.

On the board's agenda is a plan to direct $15,000 in county hotel-motel tax revenue to the tourism office, which faces the loss of funding from the city of Urbana. Mayor Laurel Prussing recently vetoed a city appropriation to the convention and visitors bureau, saying that "a far better use of the $71,820 would be to pay to fill two vacant police positions and to establish a reasonable pay differential between police lieutenants and sergeants."

"I think we should make a contribution," county board Chair C. Pius Weibel said Friday. "There are things out in the county that tourists might be interested in. As far as we can tell, the county has never supported the convention and visitors bureau."

Champaign Republican Alan Nudo said he suggested the county contribute to the bureau.

"They do generate business. They go out and they take calls, and get everything from weddings to big conventions," Nudo said. "We need to become an active member of their board. I think it's time we did something."

Urbana Democrat Brendan McGinty said he's not sure whether other county board members will agree, but he wants to help the tourism agency in what he called its "dilemma."

"My hope is that the board as a whole will understand the value that is brought to the entire region by the effort put forth by that organization," McGinty said. "This is one where you have to spend a little bit to make more."

The convention and visitors bureau needs a commitment from the county board by July 31 in order to obtain state funding, according to a memo to board members. Every dollar of local funding is matched by the state for bureau operations.

"This is one where I feel we need to step up and show the community what the county thinks of this, in response to what I consider to be an extremely short-sighted opinion by the mayor of Urbana," McGinty said.

The county established a hotel-motel tax in 1987 to help defray the cost of a $4 million pledge toward the expansion and improvement of Willard Airport. That obligation was retired in 1998. Since that time, proceeds from the hotel-motel tax have gone to items such as overtime pay for sheriff's deputies covering University of Illinois football games and other special events.

The hotel-motel tax will raise about $22,000 in the current fiscal year, according to estimates. There are only two facilities in unincorporated Champaign County that provide hotel-motel tax proceeds — a Motel 6 on North Cunningham Avenue and the Sweet Dreams Bed and Breakfast outside of Pesotum.

The county board is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Brookens Administrative Center, 1776 E. Washington St., U.

Also on Thursday's agenda is approval of a new intergovernmental funding agreement between the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services and the county nursing home, and a resolution to place a plaque outside of the county courthouse honoring architect Joseph Royer.

The intergovernmental agreement, already OK'd by the county's nursing home board, estimates that the county could receive as much as $1.7 million, retroactive to October 2009, in Medicaid reimbursements. The nursing home also stands to get another $188,000 from the resolution of a separate issue with the state. Managers at the nursing home have suggested that the proceeds could be used to pay off about $2 million in payments owed to nursing home vendors.

The plaque honoring Royer, an Urbana native and University of Illinois alumnus who designed numerous buildings in Urbana including the county courthouse, would be mounted on a pole at the courthouse plaza. All costs associated with the plaque would be covered by the city of Urbana as part of its Royer Arts and Architecture District.

Nudo also said that Republican Party officials have not yet named a successor for board member Larry Sapp, who submitted his resignation last month. Republicans expect to have a replacement ready for the August board meeting, he said.