City sales tax continues slide in March

The city of Springfield's 1 percent general revenue sales tax continued its downward spiral in March, prompting the city manager to talk about more cuts to this year's budget.

The sales tax brought in $3.2 million in March, a drop of 17.9 percent when compared to March 2009. Thus far in fiscal 2010, which began July 1, the city is at $26.5 million from the 1 percent tax, down 9.2 percent from the first nine months of fiscal 2009.

March marked the fifth of nine months this fiscal year where the city experienced double-digit percentage decline compared to the previous fiscal year, though February was up slightly from 2009.

City Manager Greg Burris told Springfield City Council during its Monday night meeting that the continued decline means another $780,000 will likely need to be trimmed from the current budget. About $660,000 of that shortfall would be covered by the continued city hiring freeze, but $120,000 in additional cuts will be necessary.

Those proposed cuts would follow $1.27 million cut in January and nearly $1 million cut in September, also due to lackluster sales tax performance. Those cuts included furloughs for management and reduced spending on travel, equipment and training for the police and fire departments.

Burris told council he would make a recommendation about additional cuts in the next few weeks.[[In-content Ad]]