Interesting article today in the Standard Examiner about sales tax revenue for our fair city. (See Here) Sales tax revenue has begun taking a nose dive. South Ogden is not recession proof after all! This is something we have been saying for weeks and now it is here!
In the article South Ogden Finance Director Steven Liebersbach said, "It was October when city officials noticed sales tax had taken a nose dive, That’s when people started restricting their spending.”
What did he say? If you remember from my post on November 18th (See Here) South Ogden was not reporting a problem with sales tax and decided to continue spending. In fact Mr. Darrington said at the meeting, "Expenditures are right on and we are not over spending. If sales tax revenue went down, things would be much worse. But if I had a crystal ball, I would say the city will be ok."
October we dropped. November we dropped. In total, South Ogden has not seen the biggest drop in taxes; which is the good news; however South Ogden has seen a decrease of $2,716 in sales taxes, November year to date. But what will December show? According to the article: Grocery spending is up. But the rest of the sales taxes are down. How will South Ogden be affected? How could we have better prepared for this? Remember we had a surprlus of funds that could have been saved to help balance our budget.
Scott Darrington, our city manager, was kind enough to answer some sale tax related questions a few weeks ago. (See Here) He explains the council has been watching this. However, the contradictions in information are interesting. First we are told we are not affected but are planning on a drop, then Mr. Darrington told the council we are good to go, then they report we have seen drops for the past two months. Sounds like a cloudy crystal ball to me.
From where I sit this all concerns me and tells me the worst is yet to come.
What do you think?
In the article South Ogden Finance Director Steven Liebersbach said, "It was October when city officials noticed sales tax had taken a nose dive, That’s when people started restricting their spending.”
What did he say? If you remember from my post on November 18th (See Here) South Ogden was not reporting a problem with sales tax and decided to continue spending. In fact Mr. Darrington said at the meeting, "Expenditures are right on and we are not over spending. If sales tax revenue went down, things would be much worse. But if I had a crystal ball, I would say the city will be ok."
Well time to get a new crystal ball.
October we dropped. November we dropped. In total, South Ogden has not seen the biggest drop in taxes; which is the good news; however South Ogden has seen a decrease of $2,716 in sales taxes, November year to date. But what will December show? According to the article: Grocery spending is up. But the rest of the sales taxes are down. How will South Ogden be affected? How could we have better prepared for this? Remember we had a surprlus of funds that could have been saved to help balance our budget.
Scott Darrington, our city manager, was kind enough to answer some sale tax related questions a few weeks ago. (See Here) He explains the council has been watching this. However, the contradictions in information are interesting. First we are told we are not affected but are planning on a drop, then Mr. Darrington told the council we are good to go, then they report we have seen drops for the past two months. Sounds like a cloudy crystal ball to me.
From where I sit this all concerns me and tells me the worst is yet to come.
What do you think?
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