BENTON COUNTY -- Benton County's sales tax revenue for the first quarter of 2014 is down by $205,992 compared with 2013, which worries some county officials.
The Finance Committee got the news April 1 in its monthly report on revenue. The county has received $1.62 million in sales tax so far this year. That's a 11.25 percent decrease compared with the same three months of 2013, according to the Accounting Office.
The monthly total dropped in each of those months as well, with January 2013 showing revenue of $540,832 and January 2014 having $521,857.
In February 2013 the county received $665,999 and reported only $597,502 for the same month this year. In March 2013 the county received $623,430, and that dropped to $504,910 this year.
Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of Benton County's Finance Committee, said winter weather may have caused the drop in revenue and milder weather will encourage residents to make purchases they may have delayed.
"We've been watching the sales tax intently, knowing it was potentially going to be an issue," Allen said. "I think the bad weather we had this winter may be the cause of it, and I'm hoping we're going to begin hitting what our budget was. If we maybe begin collecting at a rate that's about a 7 percent increase over last year we'll be all right. I want to see where that takes us. We're probably going to get one more bad report since the collections are behind. No one needs to expect anything positive next month."
Comptroller Sarah Wilson said sales tax revenue is received by the county two months after it's collected. The revenue reported in March represents taxes collected in January. Wilson said if the revenue were to increase 7 percent over the last eight months of 2014 the county would hit its budget projection.
Kurt Moore, justice of the peace for District 13, said he's less optimistic the county can recover from the poor start to 2014. He said he's less inclined to cite the winter weather as the cause of the decline. The county needs to be cautious about its spending until there's more certainty about revenue.
The justices of the peace have said they plan to monitor the budget closely as they search for money to pay for rural ambulance service through the end of 2014. The decline in revenue makes it more imperative the county keeps spending down, Moore said.
"If, between now and the end of the year, we don't come up with a revenue stream for EMS our choices come down to adjusting the budget or taking it out of reserves," Moore said.
County Judge Bob Clinard said his staff has reviewed the budgets under his office and found little to cut. He said the justices of the peace should consider taking money out of reserve to pay for ambulance service this year rather than cutting other services.
General News on 04/09/2014