By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

After a slow January, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar will send cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts $619.7 million in local sales tax allocations for March, 5.8 percent more than in March 2016. These allocations are based on sales made in January by businesses that report tax monthly. In February, $858.6 million in local sales tax allocations for February, 1 percent less than in February 2016. The allocations are based on sales made in December by businesses that report tax monthly; October, November and December sales by quarterly filers; and 2016 sales by businesses that report tax annually.

“The cities of Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Austin saw noticeable increases in sales tax allocations,” Hegar said. “The cities of McAllen and Sugar Land saw noticeable decreases.”

Houston and San Antonio also saw noticeable decreases in sales tax allocations in February.

Locally, the City of Orange and Pine Forest saw an increase from the March payment and the payment for this time last year.

Orange received a payment of $301,704.41 compared to $276,484.52 showing an increase of 9.62 percent. The overall payments for 2017 compared to 2016 show an increase of 8.7 percent.

Pineforest shows an increase of 93.2 percent for payment this month of $6,502.43 compared to the 2016 payment of $3,3665.54.

While the city of West Orange shows a slight decrease in sales tax revenue of $78,059.06 compared to $79,509.51 last year, the city has a 0.57 percent increase for 2017 payments compared to 2016 payments thus far.

Orange County saw a decrease of 5.17 percent with this payment of $314,254.79 compared to last year’s payment of $359,890.60. In February, the county saw a decrease of 1.73 percent. For the total sales tax payments for the year, the county continues to show a decrease of 8.26 percent with payments for 2017 at $1,206,547.15 compared to 2016 total payments for the same period at $1,316,624.78. In February, the decrease was slightly more at 9.55 percent less for the total for 2017.