By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced, on Wednesday, he will send cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts $709.2 million in local sales tax allocations for January, 9.5 percent more than in January 2017. These allocations are based on sales made in November by businesses that report tax monthly.

The increase is noticeable as every municipality and the county show an increase in sales tax revenue compared to the same time last year.

In November 2017, only the cities of Orange and Pine Forest saw a positive increase in sales tax revenue compared to November 2016. Pine Forest had the largest increase with 41-percent for year to date payments and the city of Orange had a slightly larger than 9-percent increase at the time.

For this month’s payments, the city of Orange has an increase of 55-percent for this payment compared to the same payment for 2017. Pine Forest also shows an increase of 66.5 percent with a payment of $6, 163.78 in 2017 and this year’s payment of $10,268.76.

The county also saw a significant increase with the current payment of $443,291.48, a 35-percent increase compared to the 2017 year to date payment of $326,806.45.