Bentonville’s sale tax collection jumped 47 percent in June compared to last year, following a couple of static revenue months. Rogers and Fayetteville and Springdale also showed increases.
Comparisons are based on collections from the same month in the previous year. Each city, except Bella Vista, collects a 2
percent sales tax. One percent of the tax is devoted to repaying bonds; the other 1 percent goes into each city’s general fund and is available for operation. For the purpose of this report, NWA Media tracks the 1 percent going into general funds.
Sales tax revenue for June is based on April sales collected in May.
Bentonville, down slightly last month, received $970,042 in sales tax revenue this month compared to $664,780, an increase of $305,621 or 45.9 percent.
“This increase is certainly appreciated,” said Denise Land, Bentonville finance director.
“Last year was a good year for us. Anytime we are near or above last year’s figures it’s a good thing. If we compare this year to 2007, our best year, before the recession and the beginning of streamline taxes, we are up 50 percent over 2007,” Land said.
Bentonville is up for the year about $300,000 over 2012, or about 9.5 percent, she said.
Rogers, continuing its string of million-dollar months, received $1,182,471 this month compared with $1,078,767 last June, an increase of $103,703 or 9.6 percent.
City officials are pleased with the upward trend.
“We are certainly on the right track,” said Casey Wilhelm, Rogers finance director. “Our sales tax revenue is nearly $1 million higher at the end of June than it was last year. The sales tax revenue is higher than we predicted in the budget, so I’m going to say we are doing fine so far this year.”
Fayetteville’s sales tax revenue has increased slightly each month compared to the previous year. This month the city received $1,449,518 compared to $1,437,508 last year, a difference of $12,009. or an 0.8 percent increase.
Paul Becker, Fayetteville finance director was on vacation and unavailable for comment. Lioneld Jordan, mayor, was also unavailable for comment because he was attending a Arkansas Municipal League meeting.
Springdale, which has seen slowly increasing sales tax revenue, continued the trend collecting $852,304, compared to $839,384 for the same period last year, a difference of $12,919 or an increase of 1.5 percent.
“We’ve been up a little every month for the past three months, which is a good trend. However, we were down in July, August and September last year, I hope that doesn’t happen this year. We will have to see how everything goes the next couple of months,” said Wyman Morgan, Springdale director of finance and administration.
Springdale sales tax revenue still trails behind the city’s best year, 2006, Morgan said.
“We are about 19 percent below the 2006 benchmark, but revenue is improving. I just hope it continues to increase,” Morgan said.
Lowell has registered double-digit increases during the past three months and this month showed another major increase. The city received $425,798 this month compared to $235,138 last June., an 81.1 percent increase.
The Department of Finance and Administration only releases the amount of sales tax revenue each month. State law prevents the department from releasing individual businesses sales tax collections, therefore it is impossible to know why Lowell’s revenue has jumped so dramatically.