The state recently released the sales tax revenue report for August 2011, the last month for the city’s fiscal year. Sales tax was up over $12,000 when compared to its 2010 counterpart and that was the largest monthly growth for the city in the 2011 Fiscal Year.

The city received nearly $292,000 in sales tax revenue for August, making it the fourth highest month in terms of total revenue received in 2011. The biggest gain was in December at over $325,000, despite the fact that total was nearly $8,000 less than it was in 2010.

For the fiscal year, the city is still looking at a decline in sales tax revenue by nearly $8,000. There were five months where revenue grew from the year before. The lowest gain was only $167.02 for March with others ranging from $1,500-$10,000.

Sales tax revenue got off to a rocky start for the 2011 Fiscal Year with four straight months of declines, including over $26,000 in November followed by approximately $7,000 in declines the following months.

If sales tax revenue is up by $8,000 for September the city will end its fiscal year with more collections than FY 2010.

For tourism and economic development collections, the city has remained relatively level from where it was in FY 2010 with approximately $3,500 more in FY 2011. There were two months of extreme increase and decrease — May and June — where figures swayed nearly $17,000 both ways. The total collected for FY 2011 with one month not accounted for is $669,769.28.

Throughout the year city officials have commented on collections and said that Dollar General stores in smaller communities in the Delta have likely decreased traffic to town for smaller purchases.