WM sales tax revenues keeping pace with 2016 figures

WM sales tax revenues keeping pace with 2016 figures

Martin: ‘ We are running almost identical numbers to last year’

news@theeveningtimes.com

July sales tax numbers are in and City Treasurer Frank Martin said the numbers prove West Memphis drives the county economy as he revealed the latest statistics.

“West Memphis, we account for about 67 percent of all county sales tax,” said Martin. “Marion amounts to most of the balance of that.” Martin made the point as he observed West Memphis sales taxes were up over last year for the fourth consecutive month, but county sales tax revenue fell off fcompared to July of last year.

In a separate interview, County Treasurer Charlie Suiter concurred with Martin’s statement.

“The sales tax comes mainly from retail sales and without a doubt, West Memphis has the largest retail base,” said Suiter.

“I crunch these numbers every month. We are down only $571 from last year. I mean that is .00041 percent. We are running almost identical numbers to last year.”

The county budget grew $100,000 this year, but Suiter said the county would finish up over last year’s actual collections and meet the increased budget need as well.

County sales tax collections have been up and down every other month all year.

“We are going to meet the budget numbers easily,” said Suiter. “We’ve met 62 percent of the budget last year through 58 percent of the time this year. We are on a great pace. God has blessed us.”

Martin pointed to the up number for West Memphis had and the slight decline for the county overall.

“I called Charlie Jr.

(Suiter) to ask him about the county sales tax the other day and they are down a little bit, so I assume, this is probably Marion,” said Martin. “Marion is probably lower this month, because we are up two percent from last year.”

After the first third of the year was down every month the city sales tax performance has been on the plus side for four straight months. The city sales tax receipts still lag compared to 2016.

“For the year we are $85,000 below,” said Martin.

Martin also thought the city would perform up to the planned budget.

“Against the budget we’ve got it down to $17,000,” said Martin. “I expect that 17K to go away by the end of the year. We’ve got five more months and with a few of thousand a month that will go away. It won’t be a banner year but I think we will be okay.”

By John Rech