Feb. 8--SANTA FE -- The Santa Fe Community Convention Center isn't likely to ever generate enough revenue to cover its operational expenses, the head of the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau told elected officials last week.

"The revenue generated by the convention center rentals will never pay for the operational expenses. Few if any convention centers in the country are able to pay operational costs from rental fees alone," Keith Toler said in a memo to the city's Finance Committee.

"At best, the convention center will generate between $500,000 and $600,000 per year," he said.

The news follows reports that the facility earned just under $415,000 in its first full year of operation in 2009, equivalent to about a quarter of the facility's annual budget.

Toler told the committee that he's in favor of a budgetary plan that would shift about $1.1 million of the city's lodgers tax revenue to pay for convention center operations. The money would be taken from a "special uses" pot that currently pays for things such as public safety at special events including Fiesta, as well as some of the CVB's advertising.

The city's general fund would have to absorb most of the special uses costs, although Toler said the CVB would also take a cut. There was some suggestion that event organizers could take on at least some public safety costs themselves, but the idea wasn't dwelled upon.

The 7 percent lodgers tax, which generated about $7.7 million in fiscal year 2009, is the main source of funding for the CVB, convention center and the convention center's roughly $3.2 million-a-year debt service. But revenue from the tax has declined 17 percent over the past year.

The Finance Committee, which is already struggling with probable overall budget cuts at the city because of declining gross receipts tax revenues, appeared unenthusiastic about Toler's proposal. Councilors decided to send the recommendations, as well as a cost-cutting report on the CVB submitted two weeks ago by a city-led "peer review" group, to City Manager Robert Romero for consideration.

But Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger said she wants the city to consider short- and long-term strategies to help the convention center "get over this hump."

"If it's empty, let's get somebody in there, even for a much reduced rate. That's better than no rate," Wurzburger said.

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