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By Dawn Burleigh

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced he will send cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts $824.1 million in local sales tax allocations for May, 5 percent less than in May 2019. These allocations are based on sales made in March by businesses that report tax monthly, and sales made in January, February and March by quarterly filers.

Widespread social distancing requirements were not in place across much of the state until late March, meaning the impact of those measures affected only a portion of allocations for this month. The agency expects next month’s allocations, based on April sales, will show steeper declines compared to a year ago.

Overall, of allocations going to cities, transit systems, counties and special purpose taxing districts, the only entities to not show a decrease in sales tax revenue is Special Purpose Taxing Districts which saw a 3.1% increase from May 2019 compared to May 2020.

However, for those same entities, for year to date changes, saw an increase in local sales tax allocations.

Rose City saw the largest decrease for this same period last year as well as year to date payments. The city had a 47.5% decrease in this payment of $16,296.15 compared to $31,042.11 in 2019. For year to date (YTD) in 2020 it received $81,530.21, a 21% decrease compared to $103,208.78 YTD in 2019.

Bridge City also saw a decrease for this period when comparing $227,403.09 in 2019 to $171,344.75 in 2020, a 24.65% decrease. For YTD the city saw a 2.95% increase compared to last year.

City of Orange had less than 1% decrease when comparing $529,613.97 for this period in 2019 to $529,472.66 in 2020. For YTD, the city received $2,130,991.09 in 2019 compared to $2,244,163.60 in 2020, a 5.31% increase.

Pine Forest had the highest increase for this period and for YTD. The city received $10,953.62 in 2019 for this period compared to $11,492.01 in 2020, a 4.91% increase. For YTD, the city received $56,759.10 in 2020 compared to $50,756.60 in 2019, an 11.82% increase.

Orange County had lease than 1% increase for this period with $504,251.91 in 2020 compared to $502,555.78 in 2019. For YTD, the county is ahead 7.06% when comparing $2,225,690.01 YTD in 2019 to $2,382,857.34 in 2020.

Next month may still reflect a steeper decrease as it will reflect sales from the month of April while the area was working remotely and social distancing.