By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced this week he will send cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts $627.6 million in local sales tax allocations for December, 0.2 percent more than in December 2015. These allocations are based on sales made in October by monthly filers.

“The cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, El Paso and San Antonio continue to see significant increases in sales tax allocations,” Hegar said. “The cities of Houston, Sugar Land and Plano saw noticeable decreases in sales tax allocations.”

While the state overall saw a slight increase in sales tax revenue, most of Orange County saw a decrease in sales tax revenue compared to this time last year. Bridge City and Pine Forest are the only cities with an increase.

Bridge City received $118,895.40; a 3.22percent increase from the $115,117.81 payment last year for the same time period. Comparing the year to date payments of $1,552,790.64 for 2016 compared to the $1,661,621.21 year to date for 2015, Bridge City has a negative 6.54 percent difference.

While the city of Orange shows a 1.54 percent improvement in year to date payments compared to 2015, the city received 11.23 percent less with $283,416.22 compared to $319,288.49 for this time last year.

The county also showed a loss of negative 12.35 percent for this payment of $337,565.18 compared to $385,156.69 in 2015. In year to date payments, the county has received 7.66 percent less than in 2015.

While Vidor also showed receiving less sales tax revenue for this period, a 11.9percent loss, the city is less than 1percent loss for year to date payments.