by BOB BARTON
With a late year upturn, Hays County’s four largest cities have shown distinct improvement in sales tax receipts for the year and are headed to an overall increase of at least five percent.
Total sales tax receipts for November saw Kyle set a new monthly high with a deposit of slightly more than $333,000. Buda’s all time monthly high of $366,000 was set in February, 2007.
Also leading the way this month was Dripping Springs with an increase for the first eleven months of the year of a little more than 20 percent. Not too far behind is Kyle, which is showing an uptick of slightly more than 14 percent, buoyed by sizeable fall increases in retail sales.
San Marcos has registered an improvement of almost five percent while Buda has nearly overcome an early year downturn with late year improvement. It’s still running behind by less than one percent but should push past the 2009 totals when the December report is received next month.
Wimberley has snapped out of its early year sales tax doldrums, but still registers an almost five percent drop below last year.
The county’s smaller cities have a mixed record for the year. Mountain City and Uhland registered increases thus far while Hays, Niederwald and Woodcreek have seen drops of less than 10 percent.
Overall the 10 cities collected almost $2.4 million this month, pushing the total city sales tax income by the county cities for the year to $24.5 million. That’s a healthy 5.2 percent spurt over 2009.
Buda is sure to surpass $3 million by the end of the year and Kyle stands a very good chance of passing that figure for the first time. Buda has done so for the four previous years. San Marcos also should hit a new annual high when next month’s collections are distributed and will almost surely surpass $19 million for the first time.
