Sales Tax Up, County General Not, Sanson Tells Budget Committee
The County Treasurer’s report took up about half of the 10-minute Budget & Finance Committee meeting on October 13. Within the next few minutes the Committee then handled the one Ordinance on its agenda and adjourned.
Treasurer Report
County Treasurer Scott Sanson began with September totals for the “big 5” County revenue accounts:
County General (fund 1000): $2,295,065
Road Fund (fund 2000): $4,256,792
County Road Sales Tax (fund 3402): $1,178,061
Animal Control (fund 3404): $1,669,660
Criminal Justice Sales Tax (fund 3407) $1,233,072
Discussing the County General fund, Sanson reported
We’re trending just like we did in 2019. The actual numbers for County General revenue — as of the end of September — is about $14,000 different than it was last year on about $7 million. So we are right where we were last year at this time…. We’re really standing pretty good right now.
Sanson cautioned the Committee that ad valorem (property) tax collection would be key “for us to make projections,” and
we’re still down pretty heavily in the 7400 and 7600 series — we’re going to be about $200,000 short in those two funds …
Next year’s revenue projections for County General are going to be almost identical to what they are this year…. We have not seen the growth we hoped for this year and I cannot anticipate the growth next year at this time.
Sales Tax Revenue is Up
Sales tax revenue for September was $889,603 — up 7.57% over September of last year — Sanson said, reminding the committee that last September was the first time the internet sales tax revenue had been posted. He continued
That puts us at 7.97 year-to-date (for sales tax) … we’re currently at 78% of projected — our projected is $9.8 million. I’m not going to change the actual revenue projections but the way we’re trending right now we will trend over $10 million for sales tax revenue for this year … we’re going to beat projections.
The three-month moving average “is just skyrocketing and the one-year moving average has turned up at a pretty good tick, as well. Great numbers on the sales tax,” Sanson said, pointing out “Unfortunately, sales tax does not go into County General.”
2021 Budget Projections Out Soon
Sanson said that projected revenue numbers should be out by the end of October, with projected carryover numbers becoming available “hopefully by the 15th or so of November.”
Ordinance 20-24
After the Treasurer report, Committee Chair John Pickett (D, Dist. 11) asked the Committee to consider Ordinance 20-24 that formalizes the $62,807 grant the County Clerk’s office received from the Center for Tech & Civic Life to help with extraordinary costs of the November general election.
County Clerk Margaret Darter explained the grant helped pay for an additional early voting site (Agape Church), overtime “for my workers that are having to work over to process all the absentee ballots going out and coming back in,” plus paying “some part-time employees to come up and assist us” to log and “get everything ready for elections.”
Darter explained the office bought two additional tabulators (“DS200s”) — using one to county absentee ballots — and said they “needed an additional DS200 as a backup.”
She said the funds also paid for additional supplies, TVs to view voting night results “so ya’ll can be spread out,” and “more, but I don’t know what it is right now.”
Darter also said, “We are in good shape for election workers,” and that the grant paid for about $30,000 in extra expenses she would have had to otherwise request from the Court to conduct the general election.
The Committee voted unanimously to pass Ordinance 20-24 to the Quorum Court.
Videos edited from original video on Faulkner County’s YouTube channel.)
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