Fayette County Towns Lead Region in Sales Tax Rebound
Missed by 10 bucks.
Had Carmine received another $10 in sales tax revenue this month, all six towns in Fayette County would be in plus territory for “the year of re-opening.”
La Grange, Round Top and Flatonia are all up by double-digit increases for 2021 after receiving their April payments.
That’s considerably better than most towns in the region. Of the 18 cities in surrounding counties that the Record tracks, only seven have increases compared to this point last year.
La Grange has collected $695,469 so far, up 11.6% from a year ago. The effect of the pandemic is seen, however, in that the total is still well below the same period of 2019.
Round Top is up 12.9% from a year ago. It’s a continuation of a long-running pattern for the town in the heart of antiques shopping.
Every single year for at least the past decade, Round Top’s sales tax revenue for the first four months of the year has increased. No other town in Fayette County has had such a streak.
Schulenburg, the county’s second largest town, has received $276,302 in sales tax so far this year. That’s a 5.0% gain from this time last year.
Flatonia is up 7.0% from this time last year.
Fayetteville has had the biggest one-year increase in the county. So far in 2021, Fayetteville has received $40,335 in sales tax, up 21.5% from a year ago.
With $43,437 this year, Carmine is shy of last year’s tally by just $10.
Around the area, most towns are down this year, some by large amounts.
Gonzales is down 18.0% for the year to date; Giddings is down 13.1%, Columbus down 11.2%, Caldwell down 20.3%, Yoakum down 13.2% and Shiner down 19.1%.
Most county governments in the area also have received less sales tax money this year than last.
State law gives counties the option to levy a one-half percent sales tax, and nine in this area do so. Of the nine, six are down for the year.
The region’s two largest counties, Bastrop and Washington, are both up for the year, and so is Caldwell (home to Lockhart and Luling), which is rapidly becoming a suburban extension of Austin.
Fayette County’s treasury has received $682,770 in sales tax rebates from the state so far this year. That’s down 2.7% from this time last year.
By comparison, some counties have been massively hit by revenue declines. Burleson County is down 37.7% from a year ago and Lee County is down by 68.8%. In both cases, however, this is due to exceptionally large receipts in 2020, resulting in a big comparative loss for this year.
State Comptroller Glenn Hegar warned that next month’s payments may be down considerably due to closures during the ice storm that blanketed Texas.
“Adjusted for the effects of delayed payments due to the late February winter weather disaster, March state sales tax collections continued to slump below levels of a year ago,” Hegar said. “Collections from all major sectors other than retail trade and restaurants continued to decline, led by depressed receipts from oil- and gas-related businesses.
“Some of the trends established during the COVID-19 pandemic continued, as remittances from online retailers, building materials stores and sporting goods stores continued to show strong growth over the previous year. Clothing and accessories stores and furniture stores showed declines, likely due to store closures caused by widespread power outages,” he said.
“Tax receipts from restaurants were up over the previous year’s levels for the first time since onset of the pandemic, but the increase reflects the first month affected by the pandemic, as restaurant activity began to slow in the latter half of February 2020.”