City Manager and Sales Tax

City Manager, Scott Darrington, answered some questions I posted to his blog (See Here) about Sales Tax.  I asked these questions in preperation for our upcoming budget meeting.

BenJoe: Does the city anticipate or see a downward trend in Sales Tax this quarter and into next year because of the slowing economy? Will this affect the budget process for next year for parks and other services?

In other words, what happens to services, parks, etc. if there is a sudden drop in Sales Tax?

Mr. Darrington: Yes, the city has anticipated a downturn in sales tax this year. In the past six years the City has seen an increase in sales tax.

When we budgeted this year, we budgeted on the assumption that the sales tax would stay flat. So far our projection has been right on. We made some cuts on this year's budget up front so that we wouldn't get into trouble later in the year.

Also part of the drop in sales tax means that we have to put off some capital projects that we would have liked to have this year.

At this point services won't change. The reduction in sales tax is not affecting those budgets.

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Sounds like they have done fairly well in budgeting this year.  I wonder what capital projects will now be put on hold?  We shall see.