March sales tax revenues: back in black

My suspicions that the city’s financial experts grossly over estimated the amount of money local Christmas shoppers would spend in retail outlets located within the city limits seemed to be re-inforced — if not necessarily confirmed — by this month’s sales tax reports showing revenues greater than forecast.

This month’s figures, which, for all practical purposes, reflect January spending, were $15,559.07 higher than what the fiscal year budget projected. It’s worth noting, however, that the $532,405 projected for the month was a significant $287,312 less than what the city predicted it would haul in the previous month.

This marks the halfway point in the current fiscal year and for those first six months the total amount of sales tax revenues collected is $151,143.58 above what was forecast and for five of those six months, receipts exceeded projections. The only exception was last month — the one that reflected the Christmas shopping season. At this same point last year, the city’s sales tax receipts fell below expectations three of those first six months.

Here’s this month’s table:

Sales tax collected	Budget surplus	Percent surplus	FY percent Surplus	Feb. 2017 Collections	Variance from last year
$547,964.07	$15,559.07	2.92%	4.12%	$510,619.20	7.31%

You can read the entire report here.