City sales tax falls for March

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar released sales tax numbers last week showing that Austin’s sales tax collection fell during March by .39 percent, or about $73,000 less than the city collected in March 2015. That was the first time in about 18 months that the city has collected less than it did the year before, according to Chief Financial Officer Elaine Hart. However, Hart said it was possible that the drop in collections was the result of an adjustment, as opposed to an actual drop in expenditures. So far, Austin has collected $85,431,155.54 for the current fiscal year. That is a 4.7 percent increase over the same period last year, or $3.84 million more. Hart said it was too early to tell whether this might be the beginning of a trend. She noted that other central Texas cities have also seen their revenues go down. According to Hegar, Round Rock’s collections have fallen by about $930,000 for the current fiscal year but were up for March by 2.33 percent. Although West Lake Hills collected 5.42 percent more for this March than it did in March 2015, overall collections have fallen .72 percent, according to the comptroller’s numbers. Collections in San Marcos have grown by about 10 percent over 2015, and Bastrop’s collections have grown by 9.48 percent over the last fiscal year.