By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Anyone counting on the Fremaux Town Center to be the long term revenue boon for the city of Slidell might want to think again.
As the new retail shopping area for Slidell was getting closer to opening in the spring of 2014 city officials spoke optimistically about the shopping center finally providing the city with a substantial and consistent jump in sales tax revenue.
With the third year anniversary of the Town Center a few months away, it is clear the city will need a lot more than one shopping area to bring in a marked increase in sales tax dollars.
The 2016 fiscal year closed strong for Slidell in June with a 2 percent increase in sales tax revenue over 2015, making it look like the steady rise in those dollars was on the way.
However, the first four months of the 2017 fiscal year—from July through October of 2016—surprised many with a stunning downturn in money.
The city had negative sales tax totals in July, August and October, compared to those months in 2015, with only a 1.52 percent increase in September showing any positive report.
Slidell Mayor Freddy Drennan believes it might be connected to the fact the newness of the Town Center has worn off, and shoppers are not going there as much as they used to. Additionally, city officials agreed to a deal with the Town Center that only nets them 1 percent of sales tax money, compared to 2 percent they were getting from the North Shore Square mall.
“It’s like so many new businesses, or restaurants—people are excited about them, everyone goes there at first, but then it slacks off,” he said about the slow start to the ’17 fiscal year budget. “Am I shocked that the numbers came in like this? No, I can’t say I am. Am I disappointed? Yes.
“I’m afraid it’s still a roller coaster,” Drennan added in reference to the sales tax money that provides close to 50 percent of the city budget.
City officials were hopeful of better days after the 2016 fiscal year closed, showing a 2 percent rise compared to 2015. It was the first time in nearly 10 years the city had such a strong showing after many years of flat growth following the Hurricane Katrina-related explosion of sales tax dollars.
Drennan, with a little over a year left on his second term, has consistently been very cautious in budgeting projections and again for the 2017 fiscal year has instructed his finance director to plan for no growth.
“We budgeted flat growth, or really, no growth in sales tax money so we can be very careful,” he said. “I don’t want to put us in another situation like my early years when the money was so bad that we had to lay off employees and cut benefits.”
A third of the way into the ’17 fiscal year the city sits at a negative 0.59 percent below last year’s sales tax numbers. While that isn’t what the mayor wants to see, he said it is no reason for panic or serious worry.
“We are not anywhere near a place where we would have to take drastic measures,” he said.
Drennan reiterated the fact that Slidell needs a major industry, or tech company to relocate or build here to bring in higher paying jobs for city residents, something that hasn’t happened in many years.
“We keep trying to land some big company, but it just hasn’t happened,” he said.
The next two months of sales tax numbers that reflect the holiday shopping season should tell a lot about what the City Council and Drennan may have to face with the 2017 budget if the revenue goes lower than it is.