Published: June 13, 2009 09:22 pm      

Sales tax revenue down across state, locally

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs announced Friday the state collected $1.77 billion in sales tax revenue in May, a 5.2 percent decrease compared to May 2008.

“Weakness throughout most sectors of the economy resulted in a significant decrease in May sales tax collections,” Combs said. “While year-to-date sales tax revenue is up 0.5 percent for state fiscal 2009, further declines are expected this year.”

Locally, sales figures are still up for the year, but decreases from last year and previous months this year are showing.

Two of Orange County’s smallest populated incorporated cities, Rose City and Pine Forest, both received a lower sales tax payment from the state this month than compared to June 2008. Rose City’s payment was down more than 10 percent compared to June 2008, while Pine Forest’s was down by 11.8 percent.

Meanwhile, most communities in Orange County had modest gains when compared to June 2008.

Orange received a net payment of more than $292,000 from the state, which is 10.3 percent more than last year. Pinehurst received a net payment of $68,361.32 compared to a payment of $63,657.84 in June 2008, which is an increase of 7.38 percent. Pinehurst is still 22 percent ahead of this same time last year, and Orange is more than 46 percent ahead of figures from 2008 as well.

The City of West Orange experienced a 47 percent payment increase this month compared to June 2008, as the city received a payment of more than $111,000 from the state.

Bobby Fillyaw, executive director of the Orange County Economic Development Corporation, believes he knows why.

“People have a tendency to purchase more conservatively in a down economy,” Fillyaw said. “When people purchase good this way, it tends to benefit stores like Wal-Mart and Family Dollar than it does higher priced stores. Things are hard for some families and they are trying to make every dollar count.”

Every city in Orange County received a smaller sales tax payment from the state in June compared to May, except for West Orange, which received nearly $3,000 more in June than May when it received a payment of $108,175.89 from the state.

As a whole, Orange County sales tax payments are still 13.51 percent ahead when compared to June 2008 and more than 32.5 percent ahead for the year to date when compared to the same time period last year.

However, in May, all seven incorporated cities received more than $1.04 million in sales tax payments, which is a decrease of $278,001.69 from May to June, or more than 27 percent.

Combs sent cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts $441.1 million in June local sales tax allocations, down 3.9 percent compared to last June.

Combs sent June sales tax allocations of $297 million to Texas cities, down 3 percent compared to June 2008. So far this calendar year, city sales tax allocations are down 0.5 percent compared to the same time period last year. Texas counties received sales tax payments of $26.4 million, down 6.9 percent compared to last June. So far this year, sales tax allocations to counties remain up 2.7 percent compared to 2008.

In addition, $17.1 million went to 150 special purpose taxing districts around the state, down 0.9 percent compared to last June. Ten local transit systems received $100.4 million in sales tax allocations, down 6 percent compared to a year ago.

June’s sales tax allocations represent sales that occurred in April.



Tommy Mann Jr. is a reporter for The Orange Leader. He can be reached at 409-883-3571, Ext. 2619 or tmann@orangeleader.com