by BOB BARTON
Additional rays of economic sunshine shone down on Hays County and much of the rest of the state when State Comptroller Susan Combs announced that sales tax receipts for the month increased slightly more than 17 percent above the May totals a year ago.
Highlighted by big improvements in Buda and San Marcos and a solid boost in Kyle’s receipts, Hays’ 10 county cities received $2,565,000 for their share of March retail sales tax receipts.
The new income reports finally pushed the county into a positive upswing for the year at 3.6 percent growth. That’s a modest amount, but considerably better than the overall city sales tax totals, which are still running 4.4 percent behind the overall state totals registered through last May.
Nearby counties such as Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell and Comal also showed increases of approximately the same percentages.
Buda’s big bump amounted to $351,000 for the month and pushed its yearly total to $1.340 million. Kyle wasn’t far behind with a take of $307,000, giving it $1,205,000 in sales tax receipts for the year.
San Marcos registered receipts of $1.743 million for the month, pushing its total receipts for 2010 to a few dollars more than $8 million.
In the second tier of county cities, Dripping Springs continues to run considerably ahead of Wimberley. Its sales tax totals for May were $85,000, more than $20,000 above the amount Wimberley collected.
Other city receipts for May include Uhland-$6,096; Woodcreek-$3,096; Hays-$2,180; Niederwald-$1,778 and Mountain City-$401.
