By Dawn Burleigh

Dawn.burleigh@orangeleader.com

AUSTIN — While Orange County as a whole saw an increase in sales tax for the month of April; the numbers reflect 1.34 percent less payments in total for 2016 versus 2015.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced Wednesday he will send cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts $618 million in local sales tax allocations for June, 1.8 percent less than in June 2015. These allocations are based on sales made in April by businesses that report tax monthly.

“Energy-centric cities such as Midland, Odessa and Corpus Christi continued to see decreases in sales tax allocations,” Hegar said. “Meanwhile, other areas of the state helped offset those losses as Austin, El Paso and Irving saw moderate increases in allocations.”

City of Orange saw an increase of 24.12 percent for the year thus far. In comparison of payments made this time last year the city shows a difference of less 1.15 percent to payments made for April 2016.

The city of Vidor saw an increase in sales tax of $255,922.79 or 21.19 percent for 2016. Vidor remains a lead in collections of sales tax revenue with a 6.88 percent increase when comparing the 2015 to 2016 numbers.

Rose City showed an increase of 1.11 percent for April 2015 in comparison to April 2016. However, the sales tax revenue generated thus far for 2016 was 28.95 percent less to what was collected in 2015.

Bridge City also saw an increase of 11.65 percent for the payments thus far this year comparing $119,792.61 to $107,289.17 of sales tax for 2015, Payments thus far for the year still reflect a decrease of 18.29 percent as the city collected $756,031.01 thus far for 2016 and received $925,275.39 for the same time period in 2015.