Sales tax revenue elevated

While school districts in the county grapple with the possibility of funding cuts, the cities are breathing a sigh of relief.

Since June, sales tax revenues collected has increased from previous months. At the beginning of May, collections for the 2012 specific purpose sales tax, commonly referred to as the sixth penny tax, were listed at $1.06 million. In June, those receipts increased to $1.3 million and remained at that level throughout the summer months. Revenues jumped to $1.8 million at the beginning of September, before returning to the $1.3 million level in October. The November tax amount won’t be known until next week. The $1.8 million in September is attributed to a project at S.F. Phosphates south of Rock Springs.

Sweetwater County Treasurer Robb Slaughter said he expects the special purpose tax to be called off July 2018, believing the $1.3 million figure is a good number to base the calculation off of. Slaughter remains cautiously optimistic, saying discussions he’s had with oil and gas industry representatives has given him cause to believe the industry won’t be improving as much as was believed six months ago.

He said the industry is trending better, but expects gas prices to be less likely to experience sudden fluctuations than it did 10 years ago. He also believes the introduction of sales tax collected from online sales will be significant, but won’t be reported until the November amounts are released. Slaughter plans to give the Sweetwater County Commissioners a more detailed economic update during their Nov. 7 meeting.

For Green River Mayor Pete Rust, he feels optimistic about future revenue, but thinks recent collections might not indicate a trend.

“(Revenues) might, for instance, be due to certain anomalies such as the S.F. Phosphates project, the Wyoming High School Rodeo and the solar eclipse and may not be indicative of a permanent upward trend,” Rust said.

The city was forced to make a number of cuts to fall in line with an anticipated $650,000 per month revenue level. During the last few months, revenues for the city have averaged $850,000, while the September revenue jump resulted in the city receiving $1.2 million for the month. Rust said the September anomaly made up for a $1.2 million deficit in the 2017-2018 budget.

“You do not immediately recover from such deficits, but you are slowly able to implement cut programs, services and maintenance and again replace vehicles and equipment in a timely manner,” Rust said. “Yes, we are doing better, but we have numbers of projects needing funding, vehicles needing replacement, positions needing filled and services that we would like to once again provide.”