Dateline: August 21, 2003

Clarendon sales tax rebate up sharply

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

While the State of Texas continues to struggle with declining sales tax revenue, the City of Clarendon is not going along with the trend.

The city saw a 19.52 percent increase in its monthly sales tax rebate when Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn sent the payment last week.

Clarendon’s rebate of $28,329.71 was up from $23,702.80 for the same period last year, and the year-to-date total is up more than four percent.

Hedley’s rebate of $547.24 reflected a 3.84 percent drop from the same period a year ago, but the city was still running 14.98 percent ahead for the year-to-date. Howardwick’s rebate dropped 4.34 percent to $1,059.42, and the year-to-date total is trailing 1.51 percent.

August sales tax rebates include local sales taxes collected in June by businesses that report sales taxes monthly, and in April, May and June by quarterly filers, and reported to the Comptroller in July.

The state’s share of sales tax collected during this period was $1.16 billion, down 4.6 percent compared to a year ago. The 4.6% decline means Texas collected $55,880,870 less than July 2002. The significant drop ranks as the third worst single month decline for Texas in the last ten years.

“This is very negative news.” Strayhorn said. “When the sales tax catches a cold, our state gets pneumonia. We’ve had a decline in sales tax collections for twelve of the last thirteen months.

“This unfortunate, historic drop of 4.6% shows that our Texas economy remains weak and there is still no turnaround in sight.”

Strayhorn went on to say, “We can’t afford to go whistling past the graveyard. State government must work even harder at finding ways to save taxpayers dollars.”

With just one month left, sales tax collections for fiscal year 2003 are down 1.8%, $236,504,862, from last fiscal year. That number is even worse than the 1.1% decline Texans experienced in fiscal year 2002.