Mayor, City Council may be looking at $7 million
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Sales tax revenue has begun to show a slowdown in recent months for the city, but the overall picture for fiscal year 2022 is still projecting a record-breaking surplus that has now grown to nearly $7 million.
Slidell has been on an explosive run with its sales tax money over the past four years, providing surplus totals over $2 million in 2019 and 2020, then the biggest surplus ever last year when the mayor and City Council spent over $5 million.
Mayor Greg Cromer didn’t imagine those numbers could continue too long, but apparently the city shoppers are not done.
Slidell just posted month 11 out of the 2022 fiscal year that ends on June 30, and even though the growth over a year ago in sales tax has slowed, the city is now looking at a surplus that could approach $7 million. That is an unheard of number considering the basic annual budget is only in the $45 million range.
The city has had double digit increases in sales tax revenue for six of the 11 months recorded so far for fiscal year 2022, compared to the money brought in last year in each of those months.
Estimates are now showing the city collecting somewhere close to $27.75 million in sales tax revenue when this fiscal year ends in one more month. The budget was set at $21.4 million, which would give the city an excess of $6.35 million.
The Finance Department must still close out the books on all city departments to see what monies were not spent—something that usually brings in more surplus money. And city officials are now expecting somewhere between $6.5 million to $7 million that will be facing the mayor and council later this year.
Slidell did see its sales tax growth slow in the past three months when it actually had 0.5 percent less revenue in March than the previous year, before showing gains in April of 4.3 percent, then a 3.84 percent gain in May.
That puts the city at 8.99 percent more sales tax revenue than it had in the previous year.
Cromer will create a budget for the money later this year that is then presented to the City Council, which will also have its input on the surplus by council members before Cromer unveils his overall recommendation.
The question now is what city officials will do with it all, particularly a group of four new members who were just inaugurated on July 1.
In the past three years, city officials have saved millions of dollars from the surpluses in rainy day funds, then he used several million in the 2021 supplemental budget for major recreational upgrades and projects, such as a first-ever skate park that will be built for young people, new pickle ball courts for that growing sport, new tennis courts and more.
Cromer said earlier this year, after seeing the possibility of another big surplus, that he would likely want to spend a lot of the money on infrastructure needs. However, the city is already in the best shape in decades for its infrastructure after recently finishing over $100 million in repairs and construction for roads, sewer lines and water lines with funds that came from FEMA for Hurricane Katrina damage.
Recent talk has begun about the need for a new Slidell Police station since the current structure is over 50 years old and while the PD wouldn’t necessarily expect to get the entire $7 million, several million could provide seed money for bonds or other funding mechanisms to build the station. The police station project is already being looked at by a host of local officials, only in the preliminary stages now, of deciding what exactly they really need and what that cost might be.
However, there is some behind the scenes hope that some of the $7 million could be set aside until the city figures out what way they might fund the new station that some say could cost as much as $20 for all the buildings, and the city jail. Cromer and the council have consistently supported the police department in Slidell, evidenced by approving an entire new revamp to their pay plan last year, and with the constant pressure of criminals from New Orleans East that the PD has so far handled effectively, the support for the station appears to be growing.
Either way it all ends up, the problem for Cromer and the City Council is one that any administration would love to have.
Other cities in the parish are also seeing strong sales tax growth in the past 11 years with Covington at 15.3 percent higher, Mandeville at 11 percent higher, Pearl River up 5 percent, Madisonville up 17 percent and Abita Springs up 21.8 percent.