Finance director: Mobile sales taxes on pace to meet expectations ...

MOBILE, Alabama ? The city's sales tax revenues are on pace to meet projections the city's administration pitched last year when pushing for a controversial penny tax increase, the city's finance director told a City Council panel today.

Barbara Malkove, the head of the administration's finance department, said without the penny tax increase, the city's budget would be hit with $11.3 million less in revenues.

According to a report Malkove presented to the council's finance committee, the city has raised $77.7 million in sales taxes right now, which is more than the $66.4 million that would have been raised had the City Council not endorsed the penny tax increase in October.

Malkove said the one-cent increase for six months in 2013, has raised $16.6 million, or more than the $30 million the city projected the tax would generate. Malkove noted that the busiest shopping days of the budget year ? Christmas, New Year's, and Mardi Gras ? are reflected in the $16.6 million figure.

"We are on budget for collecting the sales tax," Malkove said. "Everything we budgeted, we are on track."

Despite Malkove's comments, the city's sales tax revenues from Oct. 1 to March 31, are a lot less than in 2011, and are slumping due to struggles in the national economy.

"If you look at the last time we put the penny (increase) in two to three years ago, we receiving approximately $34 million," Malkove said, referring to the amount that was generated during 12 months of the one-cent increase. "This year, we are only projecting to receive $30 million. Our projections decreased because of the national economy and the local economy for that matter."

Malkove's report painted a rosier picture of the city's biggest revenue source than her update in January, when she said November sales tax figures -- the first month of the city's sales tax -- were struggling. John Sharp, Press Register

Source: http://blog.al.com/live/2013/04/finance_director_mobile_sales.html

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