City of San Angelo Sales Tax Receipts Up Double Digits in October 2017

SAN ANGELO, TX — Sales tax collections at the City of San Angelo are up for the first month of the fiscal year 2018 that began Oct. 1. City Finance Director Tina Dierschke will report to City Council Tuesday that City sales tax revenue is approaching FY 2015 levels.

Sales tax revenue for October to the City’s general fund is $170,288 over what the Council anticipated and baked into its FY 2018 budget. It is also 14.77 percent over the sales tax collected in Oct. 2016. For Oct 2017, the City collected $1,494,126. The same month last year, the first month of FY 2017, it collected $1,301,852. The record for October was set in 2015, the first month of FY 2016, when the City collected $1,508,233 in sales tax.

Oct. 2017’s receipts are just $14,107 below the high water mark in 2015.

Not realizing anticipated sales tax revenue in FY 2016 sacked the City budget, according to what Dierschke will present Tuesday. After a booming fiscal year 2015, the Council overestimated anticipated sales tax revenue during FY 2016. The FY 2016 budget anticipated $19,200,000. The actual sales tax revenue was $16,549,422, or a $2,650,578 shortfall. In FY 2017, the City’s estimate versus actual improved, but still fell short of projections. The City budgeted $17,200,000 but collected $16,597,040, coming in $602,960 short.

For FY 2018, the City conservatively projected a lower sales tax revenue amount than last year, at just $17,000,000. If October’s receipts set a trend for the rest of 2018, the City will be take in more cash than originally anticipated.  The last time that happened was the boom year of 2015.

The City has three sources of tax revenue to its general revenue fund: Property tax receipts, sales tax receipts, and franchise tax receipts. For FY 2018, the City budgeted for at total of $55,805,054 in all taxes to be collected. Property tax revenue is anticipated to be almost double sales tax revenue at $33,753,546.

Fees and forfeitures to the Municipal Court total only $3,128,116 to the general revenue.

The total annual revenue to the City budgeted for its general fund for FY 2018 is $72,503,327, up $2,632,977 from FY 2017. The total general revenue accounts for fees and charges for services the City provides, like ambulance rides, in addition to tax receipts. This number does not include revenue from City enterprises like the water department.