City sales taxes fall below budget for first time in fiscal 2018

The city of Springfield’s September sales tax check from the Missouri Department of Revenue came in under budget, marking the first time that’s happened so far in the first three months of fiscal 2018.

The sales tax check for September — representing sales processed by the state in August from transactions made mostly in July — came in at $4.15 million. Springfield officials projected to receive $4.5 million this month, according to a news release.

“While sales tax collections are down for the month, it appears over a third of our largest vendors did not get processed for the current period,” city Finance Director David Holtmann said in the release.

Holtmann this morning expanded on the statement.

"It may be a timing issue on when the taxes were remitted to the Department of Revenue or some other factor," he said via email.

After five months of below-budget sales tax checks, the revenue source for the city rebounded in July when it was 6 percent higher than officials’ forecast for the month. In August, the check was 5 percent above the city’s budget, according to the release.

For the latest check, sales tax revenue is down 14 percent compared with September 2016. For the fiscal year, revenue is 1 percent higher than officials budgeted for the first three months.