By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Three months into the 2016 fiscal year for the city of Slidell and the improvement in sales tax revenue doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
Slidell finished fiscal year 2015 with its best showing in six years as it collected a 2.66 percent increase in sales tax dollars from the previous year. It finally halted many years of virtually no growth for the city.
When fiscal year 2016 began in July, 2015, the city immediately posted a 6.07 increase for that month over the previous year, and has continued that kind of strong growth in the two months to follow.
August, 2015 had a 6.01 increase in tax revenue from August, 2014, then September slipped a bit, but still showed good growth with 2.42 percent more sales tax revenue than September of 2014.
The city is now running at 4.80 percent more in sales tax dollars for fiscal year 2016 than fiscal year 2015. The city has budgeted sales tax money for FY 2016 to be 1 percent below the ending total for 2015 so currently the city is looking at a huge supplemental budget in 2016 should the current numbers remain anywhere close to where they have been.
The city now has seven consecutive months of showing growth in sales tax revenue, dating back to March of 2015.
“It feels good to see this kind of growth,” Mayor Freddy Drennan said. “But I still want to see it continue very steady, across the board to feel confident we can count on it for future expenses. I’m still a little nervous it might wear off, but for now, I’m happy about it.”
Most experts believe the city should see an even bigger boost when sales tax numbers come in from holiday season sales since Phase II of the Fremaux Town Center opened a month ago and should bolster the revenue coming to the city.
Following an explosion of millions of dollars in the four years following Hurricane Katrina, when so much extra money was entering the city through FEMA or rebuilding efforts, those dollars came to a screeching halt in the 2010 fiscal year, falling from a high of $23.5 million in sales tax revenue for 2006 to just under $18 million in 2010.
Slidell’s sales tax revenue had remained nearly flat since 2010 until the 2015 increase of 2.66 percent over 2014.