August sales tax receipts a mixed bag for Marble Falls
STAFF WRITER JARED FIELDS
Marble Falls’s October state sales tax allocation increased 3 percent from the prior year’s amount, according to the state comptroller’s office.
The October payment — based on August receipts — was $706,051.05, up from $685,464.24 in the same month of 2017.
Despite the positive number, it is behind the 4.5 percent growth the city of Marble Falls projected in its budget. Under-performing months have left the city about $93,000 short of its budgeted collection amount for the fiscal year.
August hotel receipts for Marble Falls lodges increased 4.6 percent from 2017.
“It was primarily due to large gains at two of our properties and modest gains at three others,” said Marble Falls Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Christian Fletcher.
One difference in Marble Falls for this August was the lack of the LakeFest drag boat races. However, the city’s sales tax receipts and hotel receipts both increased from the last year for the races in 2017.
“I was pleasantly surprised with the absence of LakeFest that we were still up 3 percent,” Fletcher said.
The mid-level report again shows the building materials industry leading industries in the city. The building materials industry gained 4.11 percent from the previous year, generating $130,896.50 in sales tax revenue this August.
The second-highest industry, “general merchandise,” was down 5.55 percent to $95,841.37 from July 2017.
The impact of this month’s flood on sales tax receipts won’t be known until those allocations are made in December. Fletcher said he expects a negative impact in October, but said gains could come in November and December sales.
“We saw a similar type of phenomenon in Bastrop when they had wildfires,” he said. “There were some losses in the short term, but the recovery does provide a bump in economic activity.”
