The Lancaster County Convention Center Authority will need more money by April 1.

So the Lancaster County Commissioners have to decide whether to increase the county's hotel room tax or allow the share of the tax that goes to the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau to revert to the convention center.

At the same time, a visitors bureau task force and a consultant hired by the authority are examining the convention center's finances to figure out how to keep the center's reserves above $5.25 million, the point at which the visitors bureau share of the tax would be redirected.

How can any of them make a good decision without having facts?

Yet facts are at a premium in the convention center debate, which is why the Sunday News last week filed a request under the state Right to Know Law for more detailed information from the county treasurer's office on hotel room tax revenues.

Specifically, we are asking for room taxes paid by individual hotels and occupancy rates.

While an official response has not come yet, we won't be surprised if the county says no and forces an appeal to the state's Open Records Office. After all, when the visitors bureau tried to get much of that information last year via a Right to Know request, hoteliers found out and raised such a ruckus that the visitors bureau withdrew the request.

Right now, all the public knows is the total tax paid by all hotels in the county, which was nearly flat last year, and total delinquent taxes, which are on the rise.

We do not know which hotels paid the tax and which are delinquent.

We do not know how well the Lancaster Marriott Hotel, in particular, is doing. The Marriott, the hotel connected to the convention center, is run by Penn Square Partners, made up of High Cos. and Lancaster Newspapers, publisher of the Sunday News. Considering all the taxpayer investment in the hotel building, which is owned by the city's Redevelopment Authority, and the space the hotel shares with the convention center, it's hard to argue that the public should not know whether the Marriott is on solid financial ground.

And we do not know who's correct in the battle over the convention center authority's request to raise the hotel room tax from 3.9 percent to 5 percent.

The authority, backed by Penn Square Partners President Nevin Cooley, thinks the answer to the center's financial problems is to raise hotel room taxes. Kevin Molloy, the authority's executive director, says the center is doing well at drawing business, but expenses, especially for utilities, are higher than anticipated — while the hotel room tax hasn't increased at its projected rate.

Other hoteliers bitterly oppose any tax increase. Some argue that the convention center and the Marriott have hurt their business rather than helped it.

Yet Smith Travel Research, an industry analyst, estimated that a record number of hotel rooms were sold in Lancaster County in 2011 — at the same time hotel room tax revenues were nearly flat.

Some people in the industry might contend that hotels had to discount their usual rates so steeply that extra room sales didn't bring in much more money. We don't know.

That's why more information is critical. How can the county commissioners make an informed decision on the convention center's request to increase the hotel tax without having all the facts and figures? How can the public be sure that whatever decision is made is the best one?

We're certainly not sure an increase in the tax is warranted. What if hotel tax delinquents were pursued more doggedly? What if the minuscule penalty for late payment was toughened? Would those sorts of moves bring in enough cash to avoid shifting the visitors bureau share of the tax to the convention center?

We have lots of questions and few answers. We think we have a right to know the answers. So do you.