BENTONVILLE -- Officials in Benton and Washington counties say recent sales tax receipts reflect strong growth in the Northwest Arkansas economy.
Washington County reported sales tax receipts of $559,846 in September, according to Treasurer Bobby Hill. Washington County's September receipts this year were $37,268, or 6.7 percent, above the same month in 2014, Hill said. Sales tax receipts for the year-to-date also are above what was expected, he said.
Sales tax
Counties and cities receive revenue from county sales taxes according to their share of the county’s population. The tax receipts reported by the counties in September are from taxes collected by merchants in July. That money is sent to the state Department of Finance and Administration in Little Rock and then distributed to the cities and counties.
Source: Staff Report
"For the year we're about $272,000 over," Hill said. "That puts us 5.5 percent over last year's total for the same months. Our projection for 2015 was for a 1.3 percent increase. So we're well above that."
The county's economy has been growing enough in recent years that the county nearly has recovered from the loss of revenue prompted by results of 2010 census, when the county's share of the overall population dropped the proportionate share of sales tax revenue, Hill said. The tax money is distributed among the cities and the county according to their share of the total population. Washington county's sales tax revenue fell by 18.9 percent from about $6.7 million in 2010 to about $5.6 million in 2011.
"For two out of the past three months we've topped the 2010 numbers, Hill said.
Hill is seeing signs of economic activity that point to continued growth.
"Gas is below $2 a gallon," he said. "I'm seeing highway construction, lots of new housing developments."
Benton County reported sales tax receipts of $667,648 in September, an increase of $71,043, or about 11.9 percent over the same month in 2014, according to Brenda Guenther, comptroller. For the year-to-date, Benton County is $477,277 over the same period of 2014, an increase of about 8.5 percent. The county budgeted for no increase in sales tax revenue, leaving the 2015 budget at the $7.3 million level of 2014. Current trends will put the county at $8,056,011, which would be $756,011 more than was budgeted, Guenther said.
Joel Jones, justice of the peace for District 7 and a member of Benton County's Finance Committee, said the higher than anticipated sales tax receipts are a positive sign, but the county has to be cautious when looking ahead.
"That's a healthy increase over last year," he said. "It looks good overall and it helps us going into the budget. But we already know there are a lot of requests so that healthy increase is already wrapped up. We've got a lot of things that are going to come up in the budget process, like emergency medical services. While this is a large increase in numbers, I don't think it's going to be as substantial as it looks on paper."
Barry Moehring, justice of the peace for District 15, agreed the county should remain cautious in working on next year's budget. He said the justices of the peace have to keep in mind the cost of rural ambulance service, along with the normal personnel and capital requests for the budget. The county has to consider the prospect of spending a substantial part of the county's reserve funds on a new courts building, he said.
"The report is great, the numbers are great," Moehring said. "That's all very positive. But I've always said that just because we've brought in that much revenue doesn't mean we need to spend it all. We have some unique expenses coming up that we have to be mindful of."
NW News on 10/01/2015