City sales tax check rebounds

Clarendon’s sales tax revenue posted a strong gain when Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar distributed May allocations last week.

After several months of poor performance, the city’s sales tax check was up 15.25 percent at $42,149.89 for the month compared to $36,571.80 last May.

The May allocation is based on sales made in March by businesses that report tax monthly, and sales made in January, February and March by quarterly filers.

Clarendon is now less than one percent behind for the calendar year-to-date, down 0.75 percent at $158,010.73.

City officials are hoping for an even better showing for next month’s allocation which will reflect April sales and include traffic from the Clarendon College Invitational Judging Contest and the opening of the Whistle-Stop Trade Days.

Also of local interest, Hedley was up 4.44 percent for the month at $1,056.12 and up 17.79 percent for the year-to-date at $3,553.66, but numbers were still soft at Howardwick, coming down 13.28 percent at $969.47 for the month and down 1.21 percent at $5,413.87 for the year-to-date.

On the state level, Heger reported sales tax revenue in April totaled $2.38 billion, up 3 percent compared to April 2015.

“Growth in sales tax revenue was led by remittances from the retail trade and construction sectors,” Hegar said. “As expected, receipts from oil and gas-related sectors continued to fall due to the ongoing decline in drilling activity.”