Norman fares well with sale tax revenues

By Micah Gamino

Published: March 15, 2008

Norman fared better than some metro-area cities with sales tax revenue from December, according to the February sales tax report from the state tax commission.

The report relates to sales between Dec. 16 and Jan. 15.

Norman's Budget Analyst Suzanne Krohmer said slow growth in revenues of 1.39 percent over February 2007 was due in large part because of gift card sales over the holiday season. She said businesses don't report these sales until the gift cards are cashed in, meaning some of those revenues come in months later.

The good news, Krohmer said, is that sales tax revenue is up for the year. Norman officials projected 4 percent growth for the year, but the city is currently up 7.18 percent, she said. The fiscal year ends in June.

However, in nearby Blanchard, sales tax revenues are down for the year. Despite having the best February increase of any metro-area city at 30.35 percent, the city is still down for the year, Treasurer Karen Meadows said.

In February, Blanchard was up to $131,642, compared with $100,987 in 2007. But this was helped by a sales tax increase from 3 to 4 percent.

Meadows said that if one were to compare to last year using a straight 3 percent, Blanchard would be down 2.1 percent for the year.

Meadows said Blanchard shoppers tend to leave town to do most of their holiday shopping, which in turn hurts the city's ability to grow enough to keep shoppers in town.

"It's a real evil cycle, I'm afraid,” she said.

Elsewhere in the metro area, cities survived the aftermath of an early December ice storm with little effect on sales tax revenues for the end of the Christmas season, officials said, but some said their revenue growth for the year still is falling short of early projections.

"I think that's what hurt our sales tax the month before, was that ice storm,” Yukon City Manager Jim Crosby said. "Of course, we anticipated that. Everything was closed. We're happy things have picked up a little bit.”

Crosby said the city, which experienced little to no growth during the Dec. 10 ice storm that knocked out power to businesses and homes across the state, saw sales tax revenues pick up some during the fiscal month beginning Dec. 16 through Jan. 15. But that was helped by a quarter-cent tax increase over 2007.

Yukon came out $226,937 ahead in February over Feb. 2007, receiving $1,392,557.

Crosby said the city's sales tax revenues, however, are down for the year. Still, his hopes remain high the city will meet its fiscal year goal by June.

"I think the economy is slowing down a little bit,” Crosby said. "We're hoping things will pick up in the spring. Hopefully, we'll be OK.”

Edmond officials also reported growth lower than anticipated. The city raked in $3,585,325 in February compared with $3,383,571 during the same time last year. That's a growth of almost 6 percent.

"We anticipated we would see pretty good growth but it wasn't up to the 7 percent growth that we budgeted,” Edmond Finance Director Ross VanderHamm said.

VanderHamm said the aftermath of the ice storm probably had only a minor effect on sales.

He said the main reason behind the shortfall is a struggling market for construction materials. He said those sales have been down all year, which is having a cumulative effect on the city's sales tax revenues.

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