Sales tax rebates drop

From Staff Reports

July 10, 2009 11:51 pm

— The City of Athens took a double digit drop in July sales tax allocations from the numbers recorded last year.
State Comptroller Susan Combs office sent Athens a check for $313,503 this month. The allocation represents a 10.96 percent dip from the $352,122 reported in 2008.
In Henderson County, nine cities saw decreased allotments in July, while seven showed improvement.
Statewide, Combs sent July sales tax allocations totaling $426.7 million to cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts, down 8.8 percent compared to July 2008.
Of that amount, $284.3 million went to cities.
State sales tax collections in June and local sales tax allocations in July represent sales that occurred in May.
Athens Director of Finance David Hopkins said he’s paying close attention to the sales tax reports as work begins on the 2010 budget.
“We’re having to make projections about the year end and next year,” Hopkins said. “We’ve just started that process, so it’s a very big concern right now.”
City officials have not yet considered adjustments to the current budget, Hopkins said.
“We always budget 100 percent employment, but we had some retirements,” he said. “Our fuel costs have been down from what had been budgeted. It’s going to be close whether our revenues come out ahead of expenditures or not.”
The poor monthly showing for July brought Athens year-to-date showing to 7.93 percent below 2008. In 2009, Athens has received allocations totaling $2,443,912. The figure was $2,654,520 through July in 2008. Nine cities are now below 2008 for the year, while seven are lagging behind last year.
Henderson County does not collect sales tax.
The Comptroller’s next sales tax allocation will be made on Friday, Aug. 14.
City sales tax allocations for July of 2009, followed by percentage increase or decrease:
• Athens, 313,503 (-10.96 percent)
• Berryville, 988 (-0.20 percent)
• Brownsboro, 10,678 (17.05 percent)
• Caney City, 3,097 (-20.00 percent)
• Chandler, 28,625 ( -9.41 percent)
• Coffee City, 23,470 (11.46 percent)
• Eustace, 4,052 (8.78 percent)
• Gun Barrel City, 260,287 (-3.13 percent)
• Log Cabin, 482 (-47.52 percent)
• Malakoff, 33,230 (-14.90 percent)
• Murchison, 2,206 (-6.79 percent)
• Payne Springs, 7,452 ( 22.31 percent)
• Poynor, 1,142 (7.18 percent)
• Seven Points, 35,089 (-4.36 percent)
• Tool, 5,637 (8.44 percent)
• Trinidad, 17,287 (406.58 percent)
• County total, 747,232 (-4.93 percent)