Sales Tax Revenue Down For Most Towns in County

Four of Fayette County’s seven towns are seeing dips in sales tax revenue this year. All but Fayetteville, however, are well above their 2022 levels as of May.

La Grange received nearly a quarter million dollars as its May share of retail sales taxes collected inside the city. Its rebate of $241,934 was up 1.1% from the same month a year ago. Year to date, however, La Grange is down 4.8%.

CitymanagerJackThompson said this is largely because of a large adjustment the state made in 2023 that resulted in an unusually high rebate last year. Compared to this date two years ago, La Grange is up 8%, or about $83,000.

A similar one-time adjustment apparently occurred for Fayetteville. Last May, Fayetteville got nearly $73,000, compared to this May’s $13,000, which is more typical for the town. As a result, Fayetteville is down 58.5% year to date. Most towns around the region have had slight gains for the first five months of the year. Bastrop, the region’s largest trade center, is up 2.9%; Sealy is up 0.2%; Columbus is up 2.8%. A few, however, have seen big jumps or big drops. These are likely explained by adjustments by the state. Merchants who collect sales taxes make payments to the state, reporting which towns and counties the sales are made in. Sometimes they make errors – reporting sales in the town of Caldwell, for example, as having been made in Caldwell County. When the State Comptroller’s auditors find this, they correct the error and adjust the next month’s rebates.

Fayette County has received $1.3 million in sales tax so far this year, but that is down 8.7% from last year. Washington County (Brenham) is down 1.8% and Burleson County (Caldwell) is down 12.3%.

For Fayette County towns, Round Top has now passed Flatonia to be the county’s third largest sales tax recipient. La Grange, at $1.1 million so far, is largest; about double Schulenburg’s $518,490. While La Grange is down 4.8% and Schulenburg is down 18.0%, Round Top is up 6.2% for the year.