Mayor Dewey Bartlett said today that the City of Tulsa’s April sales tax revenue for mid-February to mid-March as reported by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, totaled $18,028,173, down 2.5 percent, or $1,436,827, from the amount collected for the same period in 2012.
The sales tax disbursement is about 7.4 percent below budget estimates.
“The drop in sales tax revenue will obviously have an impact on our operating fund this year and we will have to take a more aggressive approach in FY14, which starts July 1,” Bartlett said. “Grants for police officer and firefighter salaries will expire in the next fiscal year, which means we will need to dedicate more of our general fund revenues to keep public safety at the current levels. If we want to continue to build up our police force, we must look at other options, including the .167 cents I have proposed from the former Four to Fix sales tax to pay for street maintenance and public safety.”
For the fiscal year to date, the City has received $191,073,237, or about 5 percent more than the same period a year earlier. That total is about 1.4 percent below budget estimates.
Use tax revenues for the mid-February to mid-March period totaled $1,676,673, which is 0.2 percent below the same period a year ago but about 5.9 percent above budget estimates. For the year to date, use tax collections total $18,226,195, or about 4.9 percent above the same period last year and about 4.8 percent above budget estimates.