La Grange Ends 2024 With Record Sales Tax
Just in time for Christmas, got a city sales tax rebate of just under a quarter of a million dollars for December. That’s 6.3% higher than last December’s rebate, making 2024 solidly in the plus column for the year. It’s the highest sales tax revenue ever.
Five of Fayette County’s seven towns that levy a sales tax had gains for 2024. Ellinger, the tiniest of the seven, had the greatest growth – up 6.8% for the year.
In the recent past, many area towns have seen doubledigit gains in their sales tax revenue, but that wasn’t the case for a year that the economy was a major issue in a Presidential election. Of the 25 area cities tracked by the Record, seven were down from 2023’s total and 18 were up, but only four of those by double-digit margins. And one of those was due not to increased retail sales, but instead due to increasing its tax rate from 1% to 2%.
Carmine, one of the county’s smaller cities, had the greatest gain for 2024, an increase of 8.6% from last year’s total.
Ellinger, the county’s tiniest town, had the greatest gain of 6.8%. La Grange and Round Top each gained 2.0% and Flatonia inched up two-tenths of one percent.
Schulenburg, the county’s second largest town, had less revenue for the year than it did in 2023. Its $113,324 for December was up 4.89% from last December, but that wasn’t enough to lift 2024’s total about last year’s. Schulenburg got $1,352,360 for the year, a drop of 6.2% from last year.
Fayetteville had an even bigger decline – 34.8% from its 2023 total. But that was due to having had a spectacular 2023. Total revenue for Fayetteville in 2022 was $127,741, but in 2023 it jumped to $204,009. This current year ended with $132,911, a good increase from two years ago but not enough to keep pace with last year.
In comparison with other area towns, La Grange’s $2.7 million for the year puts it between Caldwell’s $2.1 million and Giddings’ $2.9 million.
The region’s largest trade center, Bastrop, got $12.5 million from the local sales tax, but even there, the gain for the year was only 2.9%. Brenham is the second largest, with $10.0 million for the year, a gain of 4.2%.
Besides cities, counties also can levy a local sales tax. Fayette County is one of nine in the area with such a tax.
Six of the nine counties had gains for 2024 while three were down. Fayette managed an $8,000 gain over last year, giving it a growth of twotenths of one percent. That was still better than Washington, Colorado or Burleson counties, though. Washington was down 2.3% for the year, Colorado down 0.3% and Burleson down 8.7%.
Lee County had the greatest gain for the year, up 33.2%. Most of this growth apparently was from businesses in rural areas of the county. While revenue was up 33.2% for the county, Giddings was up only 4.6% and Lexington was down by 2.7%. These are the only towns in Lee County with a sales tax.
The impact of population growth from Austin continues to be reflected in the sales tax numbers. The Texas Demographics Center, a state agency, estimates Fayette County’s population as 26,158 as of Jan. 1, 2024, compared to the 2020 Census figure of 24,435. That’s a growth of 7.1% in four years