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While many communities are reporting significant increases in sales tax revenue over the past year, Fountain Hills is not.
Going into the final month of the fiscal year that ends Sunday, sales tax revenues overall were less than 1 percent ahead of last year at the same point.
Through May the town had collected $7,287,025 compared to $7,243,948 for the first 11 months of the 2011-12 fiscal year.
That is a 0.6 percent increase.
Some individual categories such as restaurants/bars and services have seen an increase of about 12 percent over a year ago. These individual categories have held somewhat steady during the recession.
Larger Valley cities have been able to rely on an increase in automobile sales to boost their sales tax revenues this past year.
Fountain Hills has no new car dealerships.
The largest sales tax revenue source for Fountain Hills is the wholesale/retail category.
From July through May this past year the town received $3.3 million in revenue from its retailers.
The difference in revenue for the first 11 months of the past two fiscal years is exactly $768, virtually unchanged. The total for the current fiscal year is actually the lesser amount.
During Fountain Hills’ heyday of growth during the 1990s, the sales tax collected on construction projects provided the greatest support for the town budget.
As recently as the 2008 fiscal year the town received more than $1.3 million in construction sales tax.
Now construction sales tax is generating about $500,000 per year. This is substantially better than town officials anticipated, but a far cry from the millions generated previously.
Town officials say they expect to take a significant hit in revenue after the state legislature passed new provisions for prime contracting sales tax, which take effect Jan. 1, 2015 (see separate story).
Total sales tax revenues for the first 11 months of the fiscal year do remain slightly ahead of what the town budgeted for expenses.
That allowed the town to more easily maintain its budget through the final month of the year.
