Shoppers In December Provide Good News For The City Of Tulsa

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, Oklahoma – There is some good news in Friday's sales tax deposit letter from the Oklahoma Tax Commission to the city of Tulsa.

In a letter dated January 7, 2011, sales tax collections from December 2010 were 18,155,617, up $1,916,277 from December sales tax deposit. That is an increase of 10.5 percent.

When compared to sales tax deposit from January 2010, collections during the month of December were up 1,005,790. That is an increase of 5.5 percent.

But Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett said the city should be careful with its money.

"Were still not out of the woods yet, because we still believe our revenues haven't increased that much," Bartlett told News On 6 Thursday.

Last month, Bartlett said he hoped the 2010 Christmas shopping season would be a good one for local businesses and the city of Tulsa.

According to a news release Friday afternoon, "Tulsa's January sales tax disbursement from the Oklahoma Tax Commission is $17,974,061.  For the same month last year it was $16,978,329. The conservative budget estimate for the month was $16,165,000."

"That's good news," the mayor said, "and, with the consensus of the City Council, we have implemented several budget amendments to restore employee pay, cut furlough days, add a planning director and more.

"But it is important to note that while our year-to-date tax revenues are slightly above this time last year, when we were in the depths of the recession, we are still down by more than $11.5 million from where we were two years ago," the mayor said.

"So while we are ahead of the budget estimate, we still have not caught up with the income we were getting before the recession," the mayor said.

12/8/2010 Related story: Tulsa Sales Tax Collections Up From Year Ago