WM tax revenues seeing see-saw summer months

WM tax revenues seeing see-saw summer months

City budget weathers extra payday in July

news@theeveningtimes.com

West Memphis City Treasurer Frank Martin provided a rundown on West Memphis tax collection at the recent July Budget Committee meeting. Numbers discussed included sales tax revenues, along with the latest figures from the Southland Gaming and Racing tax collections and the tourism tax funds entrusted to the West Memphis Advertising and Promotion Commission too.

First up, Martin recapped the see-saw in city sales tax collections versus expenses, including a doubleblow of financial hits: Sales tax revenues for June 2016 were lower than last year’s figures for the same month.

Also, the city faced its first ever three-paycheck month for city workers in July, a situation created by the newly-adopted bi-weekly payroll.

“For June, we’re $355,000 in the red,” said Martin.

“This payroll we did Friday was $470,000. It sounds like we will just be even by the end of July.”

Under the new everyother- week system, city workers will be paid 26 TAX

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times in 2016 year. The three-paychecks-per-month problem will return later in the year.

“It happens again in December,” noted Martin.

According to Martin, the cash flow crunch would balance out. January sales tax income of $750,000 disburses is throughout the year. The snapshot may look good, but Martin maintained that was not too important.

“It doesn’t matter; its the time frame,” said Martin.

“It’s just the way you look at it.”

Martin then switched to the Southland report and compared revenue to totals anticipated by the city in the 2016 budget.

“Southland is $344,000 above budget,” said Martin. “That is general fund revenue offsetting our expenses. For the year it’s up 13 percent.”

“Their increase was smaller than historically seen,” said Chairman Tracy Catt.

“I was shocked to see June’s was less than a 10 percent increase,” said Martin. “It has never been that low before.”

The latest statement of city appropriations showed spending was still on good pace against the annual city budget of $62.225 million, at 34.3 percent of the projected

budget.

The A& P spent just under half their budget according to the mid-year report ending in June. Dollars spent were at 48.61 percent.

Tourism turned the corner in good shape, too. After paying for its single biggest expense for they year, the annual Freedom Fest fireworks event, the board had spent just 43.38 percent of its annual budget.

Martin said the A& P tax has had its ups and downs this year as well, but on the whole, the tourism tax was still 6 percent over last year through the end of June, up $8,200 for the month and $47,000 year to date.

Submitted photo

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